The Times Magazine 29Of course, there is also a desire for privacy
and the need for work to act as an escape
from the fertility mind-warp. You are drained
and are doing everything you can to keep the
show on the road, so expending the energy to
start talking about the most painful part of
your life is not high up on the priority list.
People are also understandably wary or
superstitious about jinxing things.
But, overwhelmingly, women stay quiet
about fertility because we fear being
overlooked for opportunities; not being seen
as dependable, seeming weak. As if we aren’t
committed to what we do. But, of course, if
you are taking fertility medicine, chances are
you need to keep your job more than ever to
fund your expensive new drug habit.
So I am taking a risk by sharing this. That
meeting I have coming up about a potential
new TV opportunity? I hope it will still go
ahead and, if it does, I hope the executive
knows women don’t simply disappear if they
are lucky enough to get pregnant.
I hope writing this isn’t as risky as it feels.
If you can’t take one for the team when
presenting Woman’s Hour, well, when can you?
I can only speak for myself, but work has
been a salvation during this time. It has also
been a huge help while trying to live with the
extraordinary pain of my periods, courtesy of
the invisible terror that is endometriosis. As
long as I can heave myself into a chair, read
reams of notes, talk to my producers and then
speak into the microphone to our listeners and
viewers, I am at peace. I am fortunate in many
ways; not least that I have a job that is able to
fund the high price of IVF.
And during this time, while on some pretty
potent drugs, Woman’s Hour has become BBC
Sounds’ most downloaded show, and I was
named interviewer of the year at the Press
Gazette awards. I don’t bring these things up
to brag (as much as it may sound that way)
but as proof that working women don’t
disintegrate when trying for a baby.
Even women wearing hormone patches on
their thighs and with tummies the colour of
blueberries because of daily injections – we
can and do still function in a professionalsetting. (Although I must stress that I do know
women who, for a variety of reasons, need
to take time away or change their role for a
while. Stress is the last thing you need when
trying to conceive. I do not seek to ignore this
experience; I am only able to report my own
experiences, which I also know chime with
those of other women.)
I have also been lucky that the unusual
hours I work for Woman’s Hour allowed me
to go along with the awkward logistics of
assisted conception. This is a point that
badly needs addressing, because right now
women and men having medical help to
make their families have no rights to take
time for such appointments – appointments
that are constant, essential and at non-
negotiable hours. Campaigners such as the
aforementioned Fertility Matters at Work
want the same rights that allow pregnant
women to take time away from work for
scans, and other assistance made available
to people undergoing IVF.
Because the fact is that in the workplace,
and indeed in all settings, telling people you
are trying for a baby remains taboo. I am
not proposing everyone tells their boss or
colleagues the moment they embark on the
conception road. But if a woman does want to
take the plunge and disclose this in the work
setting, it shouldn’t be viewed as one of the
most frightening conversations she ever
thought of having.
Infertility is defined as a disease of the
reproductive system but, unlike many other
medical conditions, there isn’t the space to
talk about it. Even if you don’t broadcast the
information, having some handpicked honest
relationships has been crucial.
There has been one friendship in particular
to which I must pay tribute. Down the road
from me lives a miraculous woman who is also
going through the fertility mill. We march out
on long night-time walks of rage and sorrow,
indulge in drinking sessions after the single
blue line appears again, and sometimes just sob
together. We text each other most days with
two opening words – “checking in” – and off
we go exploring a terrain only few understand.Back in 2016 when trying to conceive our
son, I also had an “IVF fairy”, as I called her.
A woman I met randomly and confided in
at an evening event the first night I injected
myself, and who used to send me texts
cheering me on and offering advice here
and there. Now somewhat of a veteran
myself, I have three women I am IVF fairying
for. I don’t know them that well but I feel I
understand them so deeply. It is something
I am only too happy to do in an attempt to
share wisdom and pass on some comfort,
which I was so grateful to receive myself,
especially in the wee hours of the morning
when the mind races.
While I am still close to my old friends,
they can’t be expected to get it fully. Fertile
people cannot comfort infertile people, not
really. Certainly not while they are pregnant
or cradling their newborns, their second or
third in some of my pals’ cases.
For one moment, just before Christmas,
it looked like I might finally join them. After
four failed rounds, back to back, two blue
lines showed up. (At the same time the
Omicron Covid variant surged and the world
was willing against the double line result;
the irony wasn’t lost on me.) I was utterly
dumbfounded that Sunday morning because
I was convinced I wasn’t pregnant. I had
experienced strong cramps in the run-up to
test day during the dreadful two-week wait
that follows each embryo transfer, a time
when I keep as busy as possible to stop my
mind from constantly wondering whether
our embryo has checked in or out.
A miscarriage followed nine weeks later.
As someone who asks questions for a
living, I have been asking myself only one
ever since: why?
No one replies and there is no one to hold
to account.
And yet, despite an abiding sadness and
my pin-cushion stomach having only recently
recovered, we are planning to try again. We
know it may never work.
This act of “trying” fascinates me more
and more. The art of it, the concept and
psychology of “trying” – not just a few times
but again and again and again. Expecting, or
at least hoping for, a different result.
Casting my mind back, I used to read those
stories of women who had been able to endure
and afford six, seven or eight rounds of IVF
and think: how on earth could they keep
going? That question is front of mind as
I potentially embark on what will be our
seventh turn on the IVF merry-go-round.
I only hope that sharing my experience
while it is happening may help someone else
trying, failing and trying again. nEmma Barnett is launching a newsletter, Trying with
Emma Barnett. Subscribe at emmabarnett.substack.comMY OLD FRIENDS CAN’T BE
EXPECTED TO GET IT FULLY.
FERTILE PEOPLE CANNOT
COMFORT INFERTILE
PEOPLE, NOT REALLY
HAIR: ALEXANDRU SZABO AT CAROL HAYES MANAGEMENT USING RITA HAZAN. MAKE-UP: JULIA WREN AT CAROL HAYES MANAGEMENT USING SHISEIDO AND BDELLIUM TOOLS. JACKET, ALLSAINTS.COM; DRESS, VICTORIA BECKHAM (MATCHESFASHION.COM)