I’ve not been able to speak to my oldest girlfriend for the past year. We’ve been friends for 36 years, shared holidays, clothes, beds and secrets. She’s been loyal, generous and attentive since we met, at the age of 4, in the nursery school playground. But, 12 months ago she became pregnant. And I didn’t.
Baby envy is among the green-eyed monster’s more twisted manifestations. Even in today’s confessional climate, where politicians publicly admit their alcoholism and sexual ambiguities, feeling jealous of another woman’s ability to conceive sounds depraved. But, for a silent group of women struggling to tackle fertility’s obstacle course, it’s engulfing. Speaking from experience, it’s tough to acknowledge, tiring to live with and a bitch to control.
About one couple in six experiences fertility problems and about 30,000 women a year undergo IVF in Britain. The success rates vary according to age and circumstances but they’re not high. According to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), 28,487 women between the ages of 22 and 45 underwent IVF in the UK in 2002-03, of whom only 7,505 went on to give birth, a little over a quarter. These figures do not take into account the thousands of Britons who go abroad for IVF — so-called “fertility tourism” — but that still leaves a lot of failed IVF cycles and a lot of frustration and disappointment.
Samantha Murrell, a former legal secretary from Stevenage, Hertfordshire, found it almost impossible to be around her pregnant friends during her three-year struggle to conceive her son Calum. “I was desperate for it to happen to us. For me, getting pregnant, having children, was one of the reasons for getting married in the first place, so it was unbearable for me to be around friends who had conceived so easily. I felt that they were all moving on and I was being left behind.”
Battling to overcome her jealousy, and ploughing through two cycles of IVF, Murrell, 34, says: “I nearly fell out with one of them. She was a close friend who was having a difficult time with morning sickness and was moaning to me about it. I wanted to be sympathetic and I was, but inside I was thinking: ‘I’d give anything to have morning sickness, you don’t know how lucky you are.’ But then, of course, I felt instantly guilty for feeling like that.”
This is a common dilemma, says Liz Scott, a counsellor for IVF patients at the Lister Fertility Clinic in Chelsea, West London. “We’re conditioned by our sophisticated society not to display these kinds of feelings and while we can’t help our emotions, we feel bad about feeling jealous. This awareness plunges us into guilt and remorse, which further distresses us at an already vulnerable time. Self-esteem plummets and the experience becomes destructive for many women. I try to reassure them that not only is envy a natural emotion, it’s been a necessary one in the past, one that goes back to the Stone Age and the need to survive.”
Anthea Turner, the television presenter and stepmother to her husband Grant Bovey’s three daughters, knows only too well how hard it can be to control. Now 45, and having undergone five unsuccessful attempts at IVF, she’s been a dignified voice in the media, expressing her sadness at failing to conceive.
“I wouldn’t describe myself as a naturally jealous person. I’ve got my vices, like everyone else but, during the time I was trying to conceive, I never wanted my friends or family to feel that they couldn’t share their joy of impending motherhood with me,” says Turner. “I didn’t resent their good fortune or envy them their babies, I just desperately wanted one of my own. It was always that, something special I’d wanted between Grant and myself.
Turner says that what causes her the most pain is her sense of injustice: “When I watch Tricia or The Jeremy Kyle Show on television and see these women dragging their kids up, sometimes four or five of them from different fathers, often with little concern for their wellbeing, I can’t help but feel that it’s unfair. Life isn’t fair, we all know that, but there have been times when I’ ve wondered how it’s possible, in a world where so many kids need love and care and lack affection, that I could be here bursting with love and yet denied the opportunity to give it to my own child.”
It’s a bitter reality to absorb, and one that echoes Samantha Murrell’s experience. “It was only ever other people’s pregnancies that caused me distress, the visible signs of it. I never felt envy of the actual baby when it arrived. It was the state of pregnancy I envied because I so desperately wanted it for myself.”
So what help is there for women who have to face the fact that motherhood is beyond their reach? Thousands turn each year to the national charity Infertility Network UK, and its sister organisation, More To Life, which aims to help people who are involuntarily childless. Its network of regional organisers offers support and information to anyone experiencing fertility problems, putting callers in touch with local volunteers as well as others who are experiencing similar difficulties.
Diane Arnold is a nurse and counsellor who works on its advice line, often talking through callers’ struggles with resentment and hurt. “It’s important to recognise that these women are going through a bereavement process. They need to grieve. But there are ways to manage this. On a practical level, I advise them not to feel that they have to accept every invitation to a christening or a children’s birthday party. It’s important that they choose how and with whom they spend their time, to minimise their distress and to look after themselves.”
She also encourages people to examine their notions of family. “Most people experiencing infertility do so as a couple. I remind them that they’re already a family because they’re together. They’re together because they fell in love and wanted to spend their lives together.They celebrate their own and each other’s birthdays, they belong to a wider family of siblings and nephews and nieces.”
Turner has reached that stage, and is, finally, philosophical. “At the end of the day, infertility is not life-threatening. You have to accept things how they are, or risk this sense of injustice and longing destroying the good things in your life. You need to find some balance. I’m happily married, and I’m a godmother and a stepmother to wonderful children. I have to live with the fact that no one’s ever going to call me ‘Mummy’.”
It’s a sad, wise sentiment but not one I’m ready to accept, yet. I’m ploughing through my fourth IVF cycle — more astronomical medical bills, more pill-popping, more peeing on sticks and more praying as I fight to overcome the biological apartheid that seems to separate me from all the yummy-mummies.
Last Christmas I sat at the lunch table opposite my sister (two years younger, already a mum and pregnant with her second) and next to my sister-in-law (five years younger than me, also a mum, and also pregnant with her second) and longed to join their exclusive club. As I said my goodbyes that evening, my mum squeezed my hand and whispered: “Come on, girl, let’s make it a hat-trick this year.” Here’s hoping.
Who can you turn to for advice?
National Infertility Day is June 10. A conference will be held in London, open to professionals and patients alike (www.nationalinfertilityday.com for details)
