We moved our things from the studio in Monaco to the house in St Laurent du Var at the beginning of August. We hadn’t had much in the studio, just a few kitchen things and a bed settee. We couldn’t move our things from Genoa just yet as Steve was still using the flat there on the occasions that he was still working there. There were no real problems with the house in fact the only major work we did was to replace the sink in the bathroom with another sink with cupboard and a huge mirror.
September 1997 actually came around quite quickly and Steve went off for his appointment at the hospital on his own as our new bathroom was arriving the same day. Steve had to do another sperm test, just to confirm the original results and he had to have blood tests. Our next appointment was in November so that they could give us the results and explain our options.
I passed my OU exams in the October, I did better with programming than I did with databases. Just after taking my exams my parents came over to see me. The house didn’t have much so my parents took the double bed and I slept on the bed settee downstairs. Steve wasn’t there as he was working in Italy that week. As my parents had never been to Italy before I took them over there to see the flat there and of course Steve. When we got into the flat I realised I had left some shopping in the car and started to go back down to get it. Living in a flat, which was quite secure, I was used to leaving the flat keys in the flat and leaving the front door open if I was just popping outside. My mother not being used to this automatically shut the door behind her, I remember shouting ‘no I haven’t got the keys’. The only thing I did have was the car key. I then went to the concierge and asked him in my very bad Italian if he had a spare key, he didn’t and proceeded to talk about calling the fire brigade. I told him that I needed to contact my husband and he very kindly let me use his phone. I got his secretary Paula who informed me that Steve was in a meeting. I told her what had happened and that I was locked out of the flat and needed his keys and she basically implied ‘well what do you want me to do about it?’ I asked her to get him out of the meeting, NOW. We agreed that I would go over to his office to pick up the keys. It wasn’t until I got in the car that I realised my handbag was in the flat and so didn’t have any money for the motorway tolls. Luckily my father had his credit card and we were able to dash into the village before it shut at midday and get some money. We got to his office and his receptionist was waiting for me with the keys. My main worry about leaving the keys in the flat had been leaving Hattie in the flat. Hattie was my baby and it distressed me that I had left her there on her own for three hours.
Steve and I went for our appointment at the hospital where the professor in charge of our case explained to us our options. He told us we had three options, we could remain childless, adopt or attempt to have a child using uterine insemination. He told us to think about it and made another appointment for us in the December. I am sure Steve would have gone with the option of remaining childless had I not wanted a baby so desperately. I had been very open with my friends and family and most knew our situation. I knew how I felt. He knew how desperate I was and so when we went back to the hospital we filled in the form to go down the road of uterine insemination. The doctor then informed us that we had to have a six month reflection period and in that time we both had to have blood tests, to check blood groups, HIV, hepatitis, hormone levels and a whole range of other things. I also had to have my fallopian tubes checked out. I went along to the hospital in December for my blood test one-day and my tube check the next day.
I was very naïve when it came to what would be done with my tubal x-ray. I had been told to go the pharmacy beforehand to get some liquid, which they had to inject into my tubes. In my naivety I thought that the liquid was injected through my stomach. It wasn’t until I was on the table with my legs bent that I realised they were injecting it through my nether regions and the equipment they used to take the x-ray pictures was also inserted the same way. It was incredibly painful. I had never known pain like it. After it was over, the nurse informed me that I could get dressed again. Obviously as soon as I stood up the liquid that had been injected into me all started to just flood out onto the floor. I also started to feel very faint. The nurse was really good. I told her I didn’t feel well and felt I was going to faint and she got me some water. I managed to get dressed but I couldn’t move. I knew if I got up I would faint. I sat there desperately trying to bend over but the nurse kept pushing me back saying I would be okay. In the end they had to find a bed for me, as I just couldn’t move. I stayed on the bed for about an hour before I felt I was able to go home. On leaving, they gave me my x-rays and informed that my tubes were fine.
By Christmas 1997 we had moved all of our things over from Genoa so we decided that Christmas would be spent in France, we’d never done it before so we invited Steve’s parents to spend it with us and for the first time ever I cooked Christmas dinner. I don’t know if Steve’s mother had an inkling that something was wrong with our fertility but she would drop it into the conversation sometimes about her lack of grandchildren and that if we didn’t get a move on she would be dead by the time we gave her any. Steve’s answer to this was ‘you are assuming that everyone can have children’. She never mentioned it again.
In February 1998 I restarted my OU studies once again. This year I decided to take law. The OU had never offered it before and this was their first year. When I had worked at the Magistrates’ Courts I had been quite fascinated with the law and Dawn and I found ourselves becoming quite clued up on it. A couple of times Dawn and I had to go back to the court clerks and remind that a decision that had been made was actually illegal. However, of course this was criminal law and just a tiny aspect in the broad scale of law. While I was studying law that year it incorporated other aspects of law including corporate law, business law, EU law etc etc, most of which went straight over my head and quite honestly bored me to death. I didn’t do all that well in the assignments but I have to say when it came to exam I thought I’d done quite well. I didn’t. I scraped a pass. Needless to say I never did law again.
By March we were half way through our six months of reflection. We had had our blood tests to check we weren’t HIV positive, hepatitis positive and both of us had passed and we were now waiting to go before a solicitor to sign all the legal documents and see a counsellor. I spoke to my sister on the phone regularly and by this time she had already got two children herself, two boys, one aged 2 ½ and the other 1 ½. Quite nonchalently I asked her if she’d have anymore, her response was ‘well actually …. I’m pregnant’. To say that I was gutted was an understatement. After a very long pregnant (no pun intended) pause, I burst out crying. It seemed so unfair that she could get pregnant so easily and I couldn’t get pregnant at all. You hear of people in the same position of me saying ‘of course I was still happy for them’. I’m sorry but that’s rubbish, it’s just the politically polite thing to say. I felt cheated. Obviously I got over it and eventually I was happy for them.
Also in March of that year, our friends Dominic and Linda got married. I asked her a few days later if this meant they’d started trying for a baby now. Her answer was a categoric no and she was waiting for her sister-in-law to have a baby first so she could practice. The reason I had asked her was because I wanted to brace myself. Two months later I was talking to her mother-in-law (Michelle) on the phone and I dropped it in that she’d probably become a granny soon, to which she replied ‘oh you know already’. I knew what this meant, she was pregnant. I had found it strange that she hadn’t rang me for a while and now I knew why, she didn’t have the heart to tell me. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t believe for one minute that people should have put their lives on hold for me but it was still devastating. I couldn’t bring myself to phone Linda for two weeks until I had got used to the idea. I did eventually phone her and the first thing she said was ‘I’ve got something to tell you’.
In April we went to see the counsellor. I had no idea what to expect. But I have to say it was very interesting. Most of the session was really finding out if we were axe murderers.
In May, we had our appointment with the solicitor. This seemed to be all about verifying our age, how long we had been married and basically given consent to using uterine insemination in order to have a child.
At the beginning of June, our six months reflection was up and I marched down to the clinic with all the papers in my hand, handed them over and basically said ‘when do we start?’ You can imagine my horror when the secretary told me that we would have to wait. I was so disappointed. France shuts down in August. Practically everyone goes on holiday in August and that includes I suspect the fertility clinic. I’m not saying they shut down completely but I suspect that only skeleton staff is on and they try and limit the couples they are treating that month. As I had been to them in June I’m sure their thought was not to bother trying yet as it was too close to the holidays.
Linda was working with her husband, the company I had worked at for two weeks previously. Linda at that time was three months pregnant and decided to leave so her father-in-law offered me the position. It was a part time position doing a bit of accounting. I couldn’t start straight away as we were holidaying in Australia in August so the plan was that I would start at the beginning of September.
Australia was great. We went there because Steve’s sister Katherine had moved out there with her Aussie boyfriend. She lived in Perth so we went there first. I loved it. The second week we spent in Sydney. We hired a car and went off to the blue mountains for a couple of days. A very good holiday.
September 1997 actually came around quite quickly and Steve went off for his appointment at the hospital on his own as our new bathroom was arriving the same day. Steve had to do another sperm test, just to confirm the original results and he had to have blood tests. Our next appointment was in November so that they could give us the results and explain our options.
I passed my OU exams in the October, I did better with programming than I did with databases. Just after taking my exams my parents came over to see me. The house didn’t have much so my parents took the double bed and I slept on the bed settee downstairs. Steve wasn’t there as he was working in Italy that week. As my parents had never been to Italy before I took them over there to see the flat there and of course Steve. When we got into the flat I realised I had left some shopping in the car and started to go back down to get it. Living in a flat, which was quite secure, I was used to leaving the flat keys in the flat and leaving the front door open if I was just popping outside. My mother not being used to this automatically shut the door behind her, I remember shouting ‘no I haven’t got the keys’. The only thing I did have was the car key. I then went to the concierge and asked him in my very bad Italian if he had a spare key, he didn’t and proceeded to talk about calling the fire brigade. I told him that I needed to contact my husband and he very kindly let me use his phone. I got his secretary Paula who informed me that Steve was in a meeting. I told her what had happened and that I was locked out of the flat and needed his keys and she basically implied ‘well what do you want me to do about it?’ I asked her to get him out of the meeting, NOW. We agreed that I would go over to his office to pick up the keys. It wasn’t until I got in the car that I realised my handbag was in the flat and so didn’t have any money for the motorway tolls. Luckily my father had his credit card and we were able to dash into the village before it shut at midday and get some money. We got to his office and his receptionist was waiting for me with the keys. My main worry about leaving the keys in the flat had been leaving Hattie in the flat. Hattie was my baby and it distressed me that I had left her there on her own for three hours.
Steve and I went for our appointment at the hospital where the professor in charge of our case explained to us our options. He told us we had three options, we could remain childless, adopt or attempt to have a child using uterine insemination. He told us to think about it and made another appointment for us in the December. I am sure Steve would have gone with the option of remaining childless had I not wanted a baby so desperately. I had been very open with my friends and family and most knew our situation. I knew how I felt. He knew how desperate I was and so when we went back to the hospital we filled in the form to go down the road of uterine insemination. The doctor then informed us that we had to have a six month reflection period and in that time we both had to have blood tests, to check blood groups, HIV, hepatitis, hormone levels and a whole range of other things. I also had to have my fallopian tubes checked out. I went along to the hospital in December for my blood test one-day and my tube check the next day.
I was very naïve when it came to what would be done with my tubal x-ray. I had been told to go the pharmacy beforehand to get some liquid, which they had to inject into my tubes. In my naivety I thought that the liquid was injected through my stomach. It wasn’t until I was on the table with my legs bent that I realised they were injecting it through my nether regions and the equipment they used to take the x-ray pictures was also inserted the same way. It was incredibly painful. I had never known pain like it. After it was over, the nurse informed me that I could get dressed again. Obviously as soon as I stood up the liquid that had been injected into me all started to just flood out onto the floor. I also started to feel very faint. The nurse was really good. I told her I didn’t feel well and felt I was going to faint and she got me some water. I managed to get dressed but I couldn’t move. I knew if I got up I would faint. I sat there desperately trying to bend over but the nurse kept pushing me back saying I would be okay. In the end they had to find a bed for me, as I just couldn’t move. I stayed on the bed for about an hour before I felt I was able to go home. On leaving, they gave me my x-rays and informed that my tubes were fine.
By Christmas 1997 we had moved all of our things over from Genoa so we decided that Christmas would be spent in France, we’d never done it before so we invited Steve’s parents to spend it with us and for the first time ever I cooked Christmas dinner. I don’t know if Steve’s mother had an inkling that something was wrong with our fertility but she would drop it into the conversation sometimes about her lack of grandchildren and that if we didn’t get a move on she would be dead by the time we gave her any. Steve’s answer to this was ‘you are assuming that everyone can have children’. She never mentioned it again.
In February 1998 I restarted my OU studies once again. This year I decided to take law. The OU had never offered it before and this was their first year. When I had worked at the Magistrates’ Courts I had been quite fascinated with the law and Dawn and I found ourselves becoming quite clued up on it. A couple of times Dawn and I had to go back to the court clerks and remind that a decision that had been made was actually illegal. However, of course this was criminal law and just a tiny aspect in the broad scale of law. While I was studying law that year it incorporated other aspects of law including corporate law, business law, EU law etc etc, most of which went straight over my head and quite honestly bored me to death. I didn’t do all that well in the assignments but I have to say when it came to exam I thought I’d done quite well. I didn’t. I scraped a pass. Needless to say I never did law again.
By March we were half way through our six months of reflection. We had had our blood tests to check we weren’t HIV positive, hepatitis positive and both of us had passed and we were now waiting to go before a solicitor to sign all the legal documents and see a counsellor. I spoke to my sister on the phone regularly and by this time she had already got two children herself, two boys, one aged 2 ½ and the other 1 ½. Quite nonchalently I asked her if she’d have anymore, her response was ‘well actually …. I’m pregnant’. To say that I was gutted was an understatement. After a very long pregnant (no pun intended) pause, I burst out crying. It seemed so unfair that she could get pregnant so easily and I couldn’t get pregnant at all. You hear of people in the same position of me saying ‘of course I was still happy for them’. I’m sorry but that’s rubbish, it’s just the politically polite thing to say. I felt cheated. Obviously I got over it and eventually I was happy for them.
Also in March of that year, our friends Dominic and Linda got married. I asked her a few days later if this meant they’d started trying for a baby now. Her answer was a categoric no and she was waiting for her sister-in-law to have a baby first so she could practice. The reason I had asked her was because I wanted to brace myself. Two months later I was talking to her mother-in-law (Michelle) on the phone and I dropped it in that she’d probably become a granny soon, to which she replied ‘oh you know already’. I knew what this meant, she was pregnant. I had found it strange that she hadn’t rang me for a while and now I knew why, she didn’t have the heart to tell me. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t believe for one minute that people should have put their lives on hold for me but it was still devastating. I couldn’t bring myself to phone Linda for two weeks until I had got used to the idea. I did eventually phone her and the first thing she said was ‘I’ve got something to tell you’.
In April we went to see the counsellor. I had no idea what to expect. But I have to say it was very interesting. Most of the session was really finding out if we were axe murderers.
In May, we had our appointment with the solicitor. This seemed to be all about verifying our age, how long we had been married and basically given consent to using uterine insemination in order to have a child.
At the beginning of June, our six months reflection was up and I marched down to the clinic with all the papers in my hand, handed them over and basically said ‘when do we start?’ You can imagine my horror when the secretary told me that we would have to wait. I was so disappointed. France shuts down in August. Practically everyone goes on holiday in August and that includes I suspect the fertility clinic. I’m not saying they shut down completely but I suspect that only skeleton staff is on and they try and limit the couples they are treating that month. As I had been to them in June I’m sure their thought was not to bother trying yet as it was too close to the holidays.
Linda was working with her husband, the company I had worked at for two weeks previously. Linda at that time was three months pregnant and decided to leave so her father-in-law offered me the position. It was a part time position doing a bit of accounting. I couldn’t start straight away as we were holidaying in Australia in August so the plan was that I would start at the beginning of September.
Australia was great. We went there because Steve’s sister Katherine had moved out there with her Aussie boyfriend. She lived in Perth so we went there first. I loved it. The second week we spent in Sydney. We hired a car and went off to the blue mountains for a couple of days. A very good holiday.
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