Jane Mulkerrins was 44 and single when she decided to try to have a baby. She reveals what it’s like to go through gruelling fertility treatment — and come out the other side with no regrets.
Yes, £25,000 [about NZ$51,800] is a lot to pay to answer a question, but I consider it money well spent. That’s the bill for the year-long IVF process I embarked on — including donor sperm, five rounds of egg retrieval (two of them abandoned midway through) and an embryo transfer — so that I would never wonder, “What if…?” I know now that I’m not going to be a mother — and I’m okay with that. I know you probably don’t believe me, but really, I am.
I have many friends who have long said they could never imagine a future in which they were not a mother. That’s not the case for me. I’ve always been able to imagine many possible lives for myself, of which motherhood was merely one.
But I do come from a huge family of enthusiastic breeders, and I suppose had always blithely assumed it would probably happen one day.
So I spent my 20s in London working hard, partying hard and dating unsuitable men (which I maintain is precisely what your 20s are for). Then, in my early 30s, when my peers were beginning to couple up, settle down and start families, I moved to New York, a city synonymous with singledom.
It wasn’t, I don’t think, a deliberate and total rejection of a more traditional path. But even then, it occurred to me that for all the effort I put into directing my career, I put scarcely any into finding a partner with whom I might want to have a family.
It simply wasn’t my priority. I was excited, fulfilled and stimulated, both personally and professionally. And I never felt remotely conspicuous in my childlessness in New York, where less traditional lifestyles are the norm.
In my late 30s, I did think at various points that I should probably do something about it before the fertility window slammed firmly shut. Then I’d look at my circumstances: living abroad with no family in the country, self-employed, with no health insurance and no prospect of maternity pay in one of the most expensive cities in the world. Oh, and I was still single.
If I wanted to do it alone, realistically I’d have to return to the UK, the NHS and my family. But that seemed a risky punt — what if I gave up a life I loved and it didn’t even work? So I carried on as before and put the tricky issue of my ovaries away for a little while longer.
I’m not blaming anyone else for my tardiness in getting off the reproductive blocks — that’s on me — but I do think women of my age have been given mixed messages. Coming of age in the era of girl power (the Spice Girls released Wannabe the summer I sat my A-levels), we were encouraged to focus on our careers and ourselves, on striking out for our sex. Then suddenly, in our 30s, at every family party and wedding, we were asked why we hadn’t got married or had a baby yet.
If you’re going to buy sperm, why would you not buy Danish?
By the time I’d decided to seriously investigate the options, Covid was closing the city down. And by the time clinics were open again, I was turning 43.
In September 2020, at a highly rated outfit dubbed “the SoulCycle of fertility”, the nurse performing my follicle count high-fived me for my impressive number “for a woman of my age”. The test of my AMH levels (anti-Mullerian hormone — an indicator, however crude, of egg count) confirmed my fertility prospects looked promising. However, I was told in a follow-up phone call that the clinic doesn’t work with women’s own eggs over the age of 42. The success rate is just too low, the doctor said (which, of course, reflects badly on their statistics). They had a fantastic bank of youthful donor eggs if I’d be interested, though?
After a decade in New York, I moved back to the UK in the spring of 2021 — for a job rather than a baby. After a period of resettlement, however, I thought I should reinvestigate the options. At a London clinic, they confirmed things still looked good down there. ‘Am I okay to use my own eggs?’ I asked hesitantly — I would soon be turning 45. The doctor was confused — they use a woman’s own eggs wherever possible, he said.
The sperm? I went Danish. I mean, if you’re going to buy sperm, why would you not buy Danish? Aside from the hopeful genetic inheritance of height, cycling proficiency and a keen eye for interiors, Cryos, the largest sperm bank in the world, is based in Aarhus.
Over dinner, my friend Simon queried the need for a purchase. He was heading to Copenhagen for work soon, he said — he’d happily take me with him and just send me out round the bars. While that felt a smidge too cynical a mission, it did occur to me — both then and many times later, with my feet in stirrups and an endless succession of implements inside me — that I might be overcomplicating things a bit.
But while perhaps not as enjoyable as a fling with a Viking, choosing a sperm donor on the Cryos website is not entirely devoid of fun. It’s like a cross between Tinder and Rightmove — once you’re a registered customer, you can select from a brain-boggling array of characteristics, traits and interests, with supporting materials including baby photos, medical histories going back three generations, hand-written notes and even voice notes. The clincher for me was hearing my donor describe his motivations (in a delightful Danish accent): “To help others realise their dream.” While there is no genetic test for kindness, I hoped that sort of attitude might somehow magically be inherited.
The friends I appreciated most were those who didn’t try to talk about IVF at all.
My ancient eggs took their sweet time to grow with the hormones, but the results from round one were better than I could have hoped for — from a half-dozen egg haul, I got one high-quality embryo in the freezer.
My next two rounds, however, were total flops, as my body flatly refused to repeat its early overachievement. One greedy follicle would grow too fast, hoovering up all the drugs and leaving none for the rest (we all know friends like this), and we twice abandoned the exercise halfway through.
My early optimism inevitably waned and the emotional aspect of the process became challenging. Having to take care of myself like some precious vessel meant early nights, clean living, acupuncture, oily fish. I wasn’t allowed to swim, cycle or do pilates. Alcohol was out, as was sex. In short, none of the things that usually distract me, cheer me up or allow me to feel like myself were permitted. It was a slog, and I was increasingly miserable.
Part of the misery was probably down to me, though, as I strictly limited the number of people I told what I was up to. It’s a deeply personal process, of course, but I’m generally pretty open about personal things.
My issue was that I couldn’t bear being asked how it was going. Questions about my progress felt like pressure and expectation, and having to report that things weren’t going well felt like admitting failure. Plus, I’d then have to manage other people’s reactions, which ranged from placatory banalities to pity.
I realise it’s hard — nobody (bar a handful of the people who’ve been through the process themselves) knows quite what to say to a woman in the last-chance fertility saloon. The friends I appreciated most were those who didn’t try to talk about IVF at all, but just invited me ‘round for dinner or to stay for the weekend, alleviating, however briefly, my growing sense of isolation.
I’m a highly sociable person (too sociable sometimes, my mother might tell you), but the process meant keeping a necessarily low profile for months on end. It’s hard to keep going out to dinner but abstain from drinking or not talking about the big thing you have going on with your womb. But I also really didn’t want to talk about it at dinner.
Simultaneously, I felt strangely fortunate about doing it solo. While heading home to my flat alone each night could feel bleak, I didn’t have to deal with anyone’s disappointment other than my own.
Like any corporeal process, there were moments of farce. One busy work day, after a frantic phone call from the clinic telling me that my follicles were growing too fast and ordering me to administer an emergency dose of the hormones that kept them “recruited”, I knelt on the floor of a toilet cubicle in my office with a syringe, feeling far too Trainspotting for comfort.
My parents — who were brilliantly supportive, if concerned for me if things didn’t go to plan — came to stay for a week. In a Thai restaurant one night, in a scene worthy of Mike Leigh, my dad had to referee as my mum and I played out an emotional scene of classic misunderstanding. Me: “I’m surprised you don’t ask me more questions about it all.” Mum: “You said you didn’t want people asking you questions.” Me: “I said, except you — you can ask all the questions you like.” Mum: “I thought you were just saying that to be nice.”
For all that I might have started the process feeling sanguine and even slightly ambivalent, once you’ve committed to endless months of blood tests and scans, ever-changing medication and ever-increasing bills, any breeziness is long gone — like anything into which you’ve poured time, effort and cold, hard cash, you want results. And not getting them, repeatedly, is demoralising.
By early December, I’d become so uncharacteristically down and withdrawn that a friend sent me to see the hypnotherapist who’d helped her when she’d been through IVF.
I told her about feeling worn out, emotionally spent, unable to be there for others in my usual way, impatient and just so fatigued.
“It sounds as if you’ve been feeling very lonely and a bit depressed,” she said.
Eight months into the process, and eight minutes into our session, I finally, for the first time, cried. I’d been holding it all in, embarrassed and ashamed to admit I did feel lonely and depressed. Those are simply not words I’ve ever associated with myself.
After the hypnotherapy — and the massive cry — I felt immediately lighter, more robust, resilient and optimistic again. Before I left, the therapist suggested I might want to get a cat — to give me a reason to want to go home to my flat.
Things had been bad, I said, but not that bad. I really don’t like cats.
I wanted to be a mother, yes. I never wanted to be a mother at all costs.
My final egg retrieval in February was a total bust; out of six eggs retrieved, none of them fertilised. There was an issue with the sperm’s motility that time, the clinic said — the Danish swimmers let me down in the final furlong.
It all hung on the one embryo from my first round, which was defrosted and transferred in February. When, 11 days later, the test confirmed the transfer had not been successful, I was surprised — in spite of the many disappointments, I’d still believed it would work out. There were 24 hours of tears and red wine with friends — and then acceptance. I’d tried, it didn’t work; we move on.
I don’t have unlimited resources, and I’m not keen to put the rest of my life on hold for even longer.
I wanted to be a mother, yes. I never wanted to be a mother at all costs.
While I share little with Jennifer Aniston, who last year revealed that she’d been through extensive IVF treatment, I do relate — and object — to her being cast as “sad Jen”, who in spite of her talent, beauty, fame and fortune, is invariably pitied on account of her childlessness.
We have fetishised motherhood to such an extent that it’s pretty much impossible to persuade people — when you’ve been through IVF and have nothing but debt and 10 pounds of hormonal weight gain to show for it — that you’re fine. Happy, even.
When, on Mother’s Day this year, several friends messaged me to say they hoped I was okay, I was furious. Because yes, I was more than okay (or had been); I was, at the time, lying by a pool at a luxury villa in Puglia. I hadn’t even remembered it was Mother’s Day — let alone thought about what I was missing out on. But thank you for reminding me.
Only in the company of other childless friends — of which, thankfully, I have plenty — can I admit to a sense of relief. While I could always envisage a potential life without children, I could never imagine one without a lot of foreign travel.
And had the IVF worked, my parents had kindly offered to move close to me and help. They’re fantastic parents, and I’m sad I couldn’t give them a grandchild they would have doted on (and grateful that my brother obliged). But even with their practical help, I’ve no idea how I would have made it all work financially.
Since the treatment ended, I’ve left London and moved to Brighton, which, like New York, along with being a hotbed of non-traditional lifestyles, is remarkably unfocused on children. Dogs, yes; children, not so much. And after more than a year in which my life felt in limbo, I’m finally feeling more like myself again.
For far too long, I couldn’t even think about my love life. Sex is strongly discouraged during the IVF process for medical reasons, but anyway, you try feeling sexy with stomach bruises and bloating. Moreover, the mental gymnastics required to think about meeting someone I might potentially like while trying to get myself pregnant with sperm from a stranger off the internet were too complex for my brain to compute. Now, I’m free to date again — and without an agenda. I’m not looking for a husband or — obviously — for the father of my children, which really does open up things in terms of options.
It’s a cliche to say there are many ways to be a mother, and I don’t even think that’s true — mothering is a unique role. But I am honoured to be an extra adult to many children and young people — from my hilarious 4-year-old nephew and my six godchildren (aged 11 to 7 months) to my oldest friends’ gaggle of teenage girls, whom I take to see Harry Styles and Taylor Swift. I’ll probably never teach a kid how to ride a bike, but one clever teenager recently FaceTimed me to talk about university applications.
Be it wealth, a partner or a baby, I’ve never spent much time thinking about the things that I don’t have. And I no longer have a nagging question about what the future might look like. So please, when I tell you I’m okay, I really do mean it.
Written by: Jane Mulkerrins
© The Times of London