The Baby Trail: How far would you go to have a baby? (The Baby Trail Series (USA) Book 1)

by Sinéad Moriarty

  I walked in and a small, young, scruffy-looking man in a crumpled suit smiled at me. He looked like somebody selling the Big Issue rather than his services as a fertility specialist. He stood up to greet me, still only reaching my shoulders, and gave me a wet-fish handshake.

  Where was my middle-aged bellower? I wanted one of those loud, noisy, over-confident doctors who bellowed at you and crushed your hand when they shook it. I immediately felt at ease with those men. The louder the doctor bellowed at me, the safer I felt. It was ridiculous, pathetic, even, but it worked. I wondered if they taught them that in college: ‘Shout: the patients find it reassuring.’

  Mr Reynolds was pale and hunched. He had blond, wiry, unkempt hair, thick National Health-type glasses, and was chewing the end of a Bic pen.

  Where was my tall, tanned, athletic-looking doctor? I wanted my specialist to look as though he’d just swooped in from the slopes of St Moritz or from a week in the Caribbean on his yacht. Successful. I wanted him to look successful - stylish suit, crisp white shirt, trendy, but not too trendy, tie and a big fat gold pen – they always have big fat gold pens to match their big flash antique desks.

  Mr Reynolds peered at me over his ordinary-looking desk and smiled awkwardly. I wondered for a moment if I had the wrong guy. Maybe the nurse had made a mistake. I looked around the room. It was full of thank-you cards and pictures of women with babies. All very well, my dear Watson, but they might have been planted there. They might have been pictures of his fifteen brothers and sisters with their offspring for all I knew, and he might have written the cards himself.

  ‘Mr Reynolds?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’

  It was him.

  ‘So, what seems to be the problem?’

  ‘What? Oh, sorry, uhm, well, I can’t seem to get pregnant so Dr Philips suggested I come and see you, so here I am . . .’ I mumbled at the man-child.

  ‘I’m sorry to hear you’re having problems conceiving. It must be very stressful for you. I see from Dr Philips’s letter that you’ve been trying for a year now.’

  Call me old-fashioned, but at one hundred and fifty euro a pop, I expected more than a curly-haired youth, fresh from sitting his finals.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No family history of fertility issues? Mother, grandmother?’

  ‘No, none. My grandmother had six children, my mother had three.’

  ‘Not to worry. Lots of women in their thirties have trouble conceiving. We’ll need to check that everything’s in good working order. We often find that it’s a simple little thing that’s preventing patients getting pregnant and we can sort it out in no time. You’ll have to have some tests done. Some of them may be a little painful, but they tend to be more uncomfortable than painful . . .’

  As he talked on about the various tests – all with dreadfully long and complicated names – I began to relax and trust him. He certainly seemed to know what he was talking about. Maybe he was one of those child prodigies who went to college at thirteen and got a first in every subject.

  He talked on: ‘Fallopian tubes . . . run a dye through . . . hysterosalpingogram . . . diagnostic radiology . . .’

  I must say I was beginning to have a lot more admiration for the casts of medical dramas. These words were impossible to pronounce and they had to learn off pages of them. Like Dr Max in New Amsterdam, smart and oh he was so hot.

  ‘. . . so once we get those results we can look at our options.’

  Damn. I had no idea what he’d said – I’d completely missed the bit about the tests and was too embarrassed to ask him to repeat himself, so I nodded sagely and pulled my diary out of my bag.

  Mr Reynolds arranged for me to have the hysterosalpingogram the following day (I asked him to spell it for me so I could look it up on the Internet when I got home). He told me to take painkillers and antibiotics beforehand and afterwards. It sounded a bit scary.

  ‘Is it sore? Why do I have to take antibiotics?’

  ‘The dye they run through your Fallopian tubes, in extreme circumstances, can cause small infections. The antibiotics are to prevent any chance of that happening.’

  ‘And the painkillers?’

  ‘They will numb any pain or stinging you may experience. But it’s a very straightforward procedure and is over in five minutes. Don’t worry, you’ll be fine.’

  Bloody hell! Dye through my Fallopian tubes did not sound good. What colour dye? What if it didn’t come out?

  Did it just stay there whirling around – bright orange or green dye? Did it come out when you peed? Would you have orange pee? I was deep in thought about rainbow urine as I walked back to the car, when I heard, ‘Emma? Emma Burke, is that you?’

  Noooooooooo. It was my mother’s best friend Nuala, whom she hated. They were always needling each other. When Nuala’s son came back from a summer in San Francisco and announced he was gay, my mother – who was on a high for weeks – gave her a book called Coping With a Gay Child. It was sweet revenge for the time Nuala had tormented her when Babs, aged thirteen, had been expelled from school for shaking the statue of the Virgin Mary during assembly and making everyone think they had seen an apparition. Nuala had been over like a shot to offer my mother her condolences and reassure her that she would pray for Babs’s lost soul.

  Babs had always been bold, but shaking the statue of Our Lady in front of the whole school was a step too far. Sister Patricia had told my mother that Babs was going down the path of delinquency and she was a bad influence on the other girls. She had to expel her and she strongly recommended that Babs be sent away to a school for wayward girls. My mother had seriously considered entering the witness-protection programme because of the shame of having a daughter expelled. She had come home in a terrible state and told Babs that she would never forgive her for bringing the family into disrepute.

  When Dad came home, Mum told him what had happened and he had done the one thing he really shouldn’t – he laughed. In fact, he roared. He thought it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard. Needless to say, my mother was not amused and they argued for hours about sending Babs away to boarding-school. Eventually they compromised by sending her to a weekly boarding-school, so she was only gone from Monday to Friday. This only made Babs worse because she was locked away in a confined space other misfits during the week and let loose every weekend to chase boys.

  ‘Oh, hi, Nuala. How are you?’ I said.

  ‘Well, I’m fine. How are you? Are congratulations in order?’ she said, beaming at me from behind her bouquet. ‘What? Oh, God, no, I—’

  ‘Ah, now,’ said Nuala, squeezing my arm, ‘don’t worry, I won’t say a word. I won’t call your mother Granny yet!’ she said, beaming at the prospect. ‘I’m off in to see my niece. She’s just had a little boy. I’ll be in visiting you soon, no doubt.’

  ‘No, honestly, Nuala, it’s not—’

  ‘We’ll not say another word about it. Sure you know I’m the soul of discretion. Your secret is safe with me.’

  There was no point explaining. I just shrugged and walked over to the car.

  By the time I got home Mum was calling me.

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘So, I have to hear from Nuala Corrigan that my own daughter is pregnant. Do you have any idea how humiliating that is? I nearly choked when she told me. ‘‘Congratulations, Granny,’’ she says to me. Is it too much to ask that you call me yourself after having me worried sick about you all year? Am I only told the bad news? Is that it? Never the good news?’

  ‘Stop! God, Mum, I’m not pregnant. I was seeing a fertility specialist and I met bloody Nuala in the car park. She put two and two together and made ten as usual. If I was pregnant you’d be the first to know.’

  ‘Oh, right. Mind you, it’ll be all over Dublin by now. You know what she’s like. Still, she’ll feel a right fool when she finds out you aren’t expecting. That’ll teach her. I’d better go – I’ll have to ring her and put a stop to her gossip. Hold on – what do you
mean you were seeing a fertility expert?’

  ‘To find out why I can’t get pregnant.’

  ‘Emma, let nature take its course and leave well alone. Don’t be going having tests and poking around with your insides. No good will come of it. Stay away from hospitals unless it’s an emergency. People get addicted to tests and examinations. I’m warning you now, stay well away from hospitals and doctors. You’re to stop all this panicking and calm down. You’re a young girl with a fine, strapping young husband. You’ll be pregnant in no time, but you have to stop getting het up and running to the doctor every five minutes.’

  ‘Are you finished or just pausing for breath?’

  ‘I’m just—’

  ‘Mum,’ I said sharply, ‘I’m not running to the doctor every five minutes. I don’t enjoy tests and doubt very much that I’ll ever be addicted to them. I’m just trying to find out why I can’t get pregnant. The doctor said it’s probably something really simple. So I think it’s better to find out now and sort it out, rather than sit around for another year hoping and praying for a miracle. I’m sick of doing nothing. It’s driving me insane.’

  ‘Oh, you’re all the same, you young ones. Everything has to be immediate. You want to snap your fingers and have a baby. Life’s not like that, Emma. These things take time and getting yourself into knots is bad for you and bad for your marriage. What does James think of all this running to the doctor?’

  ‘He thinks it’s a good idea. He wants me to see the specialist and check if everything’s in working order. It’s no big deal. It’s not as if I’m going in for major surgery. I’m just going to have a few simple tests.’

  ‘Tests are never simple. Mark my words. Leave your insides alone.’

  ‘I’m having the tests done and that’s the end of it.’

  ‘Headstrong. That’s your problem, you were always headstrong.’

  ‘Gee, I wonder where I got that trait from.’

  ‘Don’t be fresh with me, young lady. Now, when are these tests?’

  ‘Tomorrow.’

  ‘I’ll say a prayer they go well.’

  ‘Thanks, Mum.’

  ‘Not that I approve.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘All right, ’bye now.’

  ‘’Bye.’

  I looked up hysterosalpingogram on Google. There were 681,000 results. I clicked on the BBC health site. I trusted the BBC. It was an institution. The BBC wouldn’t exaggerate or dramatize, it would simply give me the facts.

  Hysterosalpingogram is a series of X-ray pictures of the female reproductive tract. Dye that shows up on X-ray is passed into the uterus and tubes and spills into the abdominal cavity. Why is it done? An HSG will show the shape of the inside of the uterus and the Fallopian tubes, confirming that they are normal and the tubes are open . . .

  Thank God they shortened it to HSG. Even native Welsh speakers wouldn’t be able to get their tongues around ‘hysterosalpingogram’.

  Although the hysterosalpingogram is not a treatment, gently forcing dye through the tube may dislodge any material which blocks it and pregnancy has been known to occur. Abnormal findings, such as polyps, fibroids and adhesions, can be detected during the test.

  It didn’t sound too bad. Gently forcing dye through my tubes sounded all right. Although ‘dislodging material’ on the way through sounded a bit painful and it didn’t say what colour the dye was. I scrolled down to ‘Procedures and Tips’:

  You may be advised to take a simple painkiller or some antiinflammatory painkillers such as ibuprofen beforehand as you can get crampy pains, during or after the test. These should settle quickly. You will undress and put on a theatre gown and be asked to sit up on the couch before your legs are put in the lithotomy position.

  Lithotomy position? What was that? It sounded like one of those complicated yoga positions. I should have tried harder in yoga class – now when the doctor tried to twist my legs into the lithotomy position, I wouldn’t be flexible enough. I’d have to get James to help me do some of those training stretches he did with the team. Suppleness was obviously the key to this whole process.

  A speculum will be placed in the vagina so that the cervix is visible. While X-ray pictures are being taken, a fine catheter will be passed into the cervix and dye injected into the uterus. It should pass on through the tubes. For 2–3 days afterwards you may notice a sticky vaginal discharge – this is the dye leaking out and is harmless. Any dye which remains within you will be harmlessly absorbed.

  Absorbed! Where did it go? Into your bloodstream? And as for the dye leaking out – it was all very well for the BBC to be all stiff upper lip and refer to it as ‘harmless’ but it sounded gross to me. I decided that the Internet was not good for me. I was one of those people who are better off not knowing. Ignorance is bliss.

  When James came home I told him about the test. He was due to go out to play soccer, but I figured when he saw how nervous I was, he’d stay in and comfort me.

  ‘So they blast this dye out your tubes and apparently it’s really sore,’ I announced dramatically.

  ‘That sounds a bit grim,’ he said, doing up his laces. ‘Maybe you should leave it for a bit.’

  ‘Leave what for a bit? We’ve been trying for a year. What am I supposed to do? Sit around and wait for another year to slip by? I don’t want to be ninety when my kids are in school.’

  ‘OK, OK. If you feel you want to go ahead with it, then fine. You just don’t sound very happy about it.’

  ‘Well, how enthusiastic would you be at the prospect of having a dye blasted up your penis and out your balls?’

  ‘I dunno, sounds a bit kinky.’

  ‘Come on, be serious.’

  ‘Look, Emma, if you don’t want to do it, then don’t do it.’

  ‘I have to do it. Whether I want to or not. I have to find out why I can’t conceive.’

  ‘OK, well, if you’re sure . . .’

  ‘Anyway, that’s not all. I met Nuala in the car park and she now thinks I’m pregnant and then she called Mum and then Mum rang me and it was a complete mess.’

  ‘Who’s Nuala?’

  ‘You know Nuala. You’ve met her loads of times. She’s

  Mum’s best friend.’

  ‘Oh, right, the one she’s always complaining about.’

  ‘Yes. Anyway, can you believe I met her, of all people?’ ‘No. Look, I’ve got to go. I’ll see you later.’

  ‘What? You’re not leaving? James, I’ve had a crappy day and I have to go for a horrible test tomorrow. I presumed you’d stay in and keep me company.’

  ‘I’m sorry you had a bad day, darling, but I can’t let the boys down tonight. It’s a league game.’

  ‘If it isn’t bloody rugby, it’s soccer. Thanks a lot for your support. I’ll just stay in on my own, then.’

  James grabbed his bag and rushed out the door. Cheers, I thought. Thanks a lot, James. I wanted him to give me a hug and tell me what a brave soldier I was. How my strength and determination amazed him. How he could never endure a test where they blasted dye up his genitals. That he would tell our baby how wonderful I had been in the face of adversity . . .

  Instead he had bolted out the door as fast as his legs could carry him.

  The next day I arrived at the hospital having taken my antibiotics and three ibuprofen for good measure. The nurse on Reception was very bustly and bossy. She marched me towards a tiny dressing room and told me – very loudly – to get undressed and take off everything – ‘including your pants . . . and wait there until I call you. Good girl.’

  There’s something about hospitals that makes you feel ten years old. It doesn’t matter how small the test or examination, once you step inside a hospital you feel young, frail and vulnerable. It’s all bright lights and people in white uniforms rushing about. Doctors striding purposefully down endless corridors. Huge lifts opening up to reveal cheerful orderlies wheeling terrified-looking patients off to surgery. And it’s all mixed in with the smell of Dettol and boil
ed cabbage.

  As I sat shivering in my gown – which was wide open at the back – I began to feel really nervous. Just as I was contemplating getting dressed and doing a runner, the nurse came back and told me to go straight down, turn left at the nurses’ station, follow the signs to Radiology and then a few more lefts and rights . . . What? Was I supposed to go on this hike barefoot and showing my bare ass to the world? I looked at her and blinked. ‘I’m sorry, could you repeat that, please?’

  She looked at me and shook her head. She could tell I was a potential weeper. ‘Follow me, she barked.’

  And with that she took off down the corridor like a bullet with me trailing in her wake, one hand gripping the back of my gown closed and my bare feet padding along the cold linoleum. As we turned the corner I saw a woman about my age shuffling along the corridor towards us. She was also trying to keep some semblance of dignity by holding her gown closed at the back, although she had had the foresight to keep her socks on. We caught each other’s eye and nodded grimly. She didn’t look too good to me. You could see she was in a lot of pain. I prayed silently that she hadn’t just come from Radiology.

  ‘Here we are. This is Emer, she’ll look after you,’ said old Bossy Boots, leaving me with a sweet-faced young nurse.

  ‘Oh, your poor feet must be frozen,’ said Emer, looking down at my blue toes. ‘I’ll see if I can find you some slippers. Come on in here with me.’

  She led me into a small room with a bed and some complicated-looking equipment. ‘Don’t be nervous, pet, you’ll be grand. It’ll all be over in five minutes,’ she said, patting my arm.

  The fact that she was being so nice made me feel even weepier. But I managed to control myself and climbed on to the bed as instructed. The door opened and a woman in her mid-fifties came in. ‘Hello there, Emma, I’m Dr Tunney, your radiologist. I’ll be performing the HSG today. It’s a very straightforward procedure . . .’