CW: This post discusses infertility and loss.
I have been a bit absent from here for the last few months. While I am normally open and communicative during periods of difficulty, I have felt the need to “close ranks” during this time, while going through multiple rounds of fertility treatment. Filled with initial hope and then crushing grief and loss, I have intended to write about the rollercoaster of this most recent experience of IVF but every time I’ve gone to write, there’s been the anticipation of “what’s next” - next appointment, next procedure, next stage - and not wanting to “jinx” that. After our most recent appointment with the fertility specialist, we left with a sense of confusion, and a difficult “choice” ahead of us. Not being able to articulate the decision in any other way, I went to my phone and messaged my spouse “I think we need to get a new couch”.
When we bought our current couch, we had a list of non-negotiables for features essential to cater for a growing family. Durable? Check - it’s indestructible. Easy to clean? A cinch, thanks to being all fake leather. Versatile? It not only has a chaise, but easily converts into a double bed! Inoffensive? Its basic black shade works with any kind of toy thrown on it and highlights spilled yogurt (so you can wipe it off quickly and easily). What it lacks in comfort and aesthetic, it makes up for in convenience and the ability to minimise one area of parental anxiety (the risk of furniture destruction). “It’s not our forever couch”, we told ourselves at the time of purchase. “When our youngest child hits an appropriate age, we’ll get a better couch”.
My son (our first child) was born shortly after the couch purchase and we learnt, early on, that we had made the right choice in sticking with our plan. The number of fluids that the couch has encountered - and resisted - goes beyond anything you would consider possible, especially during the first two years of life. Moving into the toddler years, the couch met the challenge of being leapt and thrust upon and became the canvas for countless paint/texta/crayon masterpieces. And much like a trusty steed, the couch was unfailing in its objective - be reliable.
There have been times over the last few years where I have been tempted to stray from the trusty and embrace the fancy. Mindless scrolling during my downtime showed me how I could freshen up the lounge room by swapping the durable seating for a plush velvet sofa. But I would then imagine how the couch would be utilised when having a second child - being used as a climbing frame again, holding steady while a tentative yet overly confident baby took their first assisted steps on it - and this was enough to stifle the urge to impulse purchase. But after the recent specialist appointment, we were forced to face our new reality.
My absence from writing has consisted of frozen embryo transfer (which ended in early miscarriage), heavy testosterone protocol stimulation and egg retrieval (which resulted in two eggs, one fertilised via ICSI) and the fertilised egg failing to reach blastocyst stage. At the specialist appointment, I had expected her to tell us that there are no further options - our IVF journey has ended. If I am honest, I had hoped that this would be the news - my stubbornness means that if I am told that there is even the slightest chance, I would take it and persevere, even to my detriment. But we were told that there was one other option - it was laden with significant risk, exorbitant cost, and would lead to maybe a 10% increase in the ability to stimulate egg production. I had been given a choice - and had to confront my debilitating reluctance to “quit”.
Looking at the “choice” objectively, I know it is not quitting, I know it is not failure. My son needs a healthy, relatively stable parent to guide him through his early years, and that would be greatly reduced in this next step of trying to conceive. But there is significant grief to the finality of making that choice - the grief of the losses and the grief of what could have been. The new reality is, we are now part of the “one and done” cohort. It was too hard to acknowledge all of that when making that choice, so I did what I do best - externalise it and funnel it into symbolism. So when my spouse got the message, he knew what the new couch meant.
Our trusty couch has seen our family through its earliest years. Now, it’s time to move forward with our next stage of life, starting with a new fancy couch.