ADDICTED....

Having shared nearly 30 years of my life with Trudie and 12 of those years on IVF, I thought I knew everything there was to know about her, yet was shocked to find out just recently that there were even greater depths of feelings and emotions driving her on through the IVF years than I could have imagined.

We still talk about IVF almost on a daily basis because it was a massive part of our lives as we went through it at the time and it continues to be even now when every day we can look at our wonderful son who serves as a reminder of the reason we hung in there all those years without ever giving up hope that one day our dream would be fulfilled and we continue to give thanks and gratitude for the eventual outcome that was bestowed on us with his birth.

I commented to Trudie that through all that time, being there with her and witnessing what she went through both physically and emotionally, I still couldn’t see how she survived it the way she did.

She had 6 full cycles of IVF and over the 12 years had over 100 fertilised embryos inseminated before we eventually hit the jackpot.  Many people can’t cope with the odd trip to the dentist without getting distressed and many so called ‘routine operations’ in everyday medical situations bring their own stresses and angst to the patient.

“So how could you cope with having your own ‘routine operation’ practically every month for 12 years”? I asked her…..

The reply I got was to say the least not what I expected. Yes I knew Trudie was desperate to have a baby. Yes I knew there was nothing she would not have done to be a mother. Yes I knew that she so much needed to feel whole and (in her own words) “Be a complete woman”, but what she said brought it all home to me. For the first time in 25 years I finally understood what had been driving her on….

“I was addicted to getting pregnant”

I was stunned into silence as I took on board the magnitude of that reply.

“Hang on a second,” I said eventually, “addicted is such a strong word to use to describe your state of body and mind over all those years. People get addicted to drugs, or alcohol, or smoking, not IVF?”

“I never said I was addicted to IVF” she replied, “I was addicted to getting pregnant be it through IVF or whatever means possible. All I know is that I had an incurable need to get pregnant”.

Now my understanding of an addict is someone who is compelled to do something almost against their own will and better judgement, someone who has a dependence that they can’t live without. Other words that spring to mind when I think of an addict are, hooked, obsessed and craving!

These are words Trudie is very familiar with too as a bye-product of her line of work and regularly has to do work that involves dealing with drug addicts and alcoholics so if she says she was addicted to getting pregnant I have to believe her.

We talked long into the night and I continued to probe her about this ‘new found revelation’. After all I was finding out something new about the person I had spent practically my whole life with and how often does that happen? 

Like I said, I thought I knew everything there was to know, I sometimes tell Trudie I know her better than she knows herself but there was more mind-blowing stuff to come when she told me something that actually stunned me to the very core of my being. She said that in the most desperate days of the IVF years, when she was at her lowest ebb and thinking the unthinkable thought that she would never have a baby, that if during one of her routine tests the doctors had found something wrong that revealed she was terminally ill and would die very soon then that would have been such a relief! A massive weight off her shoulders!  Impending death would have been easier for her to cope with than facing a lifetime of never being a mother to a child.

Yes at times her will to continue was so weak that death would have been an easier option and only her ‘addiction to getting pregnant’ kept her going.

Hearing this really upset me because she never in all those years told me as starkly as this how she felt. She coped with it all alone but then again that sums her up completely, keeping everything on the positive, to the outside world at least.

As I listened to her I began to wonder how I never picked up on how desperate and alone she must have been feeling for all those years because having been slow to get on board with the whole IVF thing in the first place I always thought that once I’d got my act together I had been 100% supportive and there for her every step of the way.  Then again in comparison to someone who is a drug addict or alcoholic I suppose the similarities are there because often times it’s the people who are closest to the addict who are last to know as the afflicted person does their best to shield loved ones from the fallout from their addiction, they prefer to deal with the problem alone. 

Trudie went onto explain that even though she considered herself an addict she would never voice that opinion because no one would take her seriously and you know I think she is right. Society readily accepts that unfortunately there are drug addicts, alcohol addicts (alcoholics) smoking addicts, gambling addicts and even sex addicts if some of the tabloids and celebrity magazines are to be believed, and there is recognised help for all these people. There are government bodies, independent associations, clinics and self-help groups catering for the needs of all these people that need help but the poor souls ‘addicted to trying to get pregnant’ are not recognised for the mental state they find themselves in and it’s not a place they choose to be at, they are coping everyday with the hand they have been dealt by ‘Mother Nature’.

It’s so easy for people on the outside to say things such as why don’t you consider adoption? Or why don’t you just accept that you can’t have kids and move on with your life? But that’s like saying to a Heroin addict, “Why don’t you just chew gum when the cravings come? It’ll take your mind of it”…. No it won’t!

I’m not saying there is no place for adoption in our society because there are so many beautiful kids out there that need adopting so that they can have a fair start in their young lives and it’s a route that we seriously considered then actually set out on even though ‘under the system’ that was not allowed for couples on IVF and is a whole new chapter that I will tell you about another time, but when that need to produce her own offspring burns deep inside a woman nothing in the world can extinguish it. Nothing that is, other than giving birth and that’s the only difference between a heroin addict and a woman addicted to giving birth.

In her work Trudie has learned (and it was news to me) that when a person takes heroin for the first time they experience a most unbelievable and euphoric high and the user has never had a ‘feeling so good’.  However what most heroin users don’t know or accept is that ‘the high’ they experience that first time is the ‘best one’ they will ever experience from using that drug. That extreme ecstasy can never be recreated to the same degree ever again but the sad and tragic thing is that heroin addicts spend the rest of their lives in the fruitless quest of trying to rediscover that very first high, in short they become immediately addicted while not realising that never ever will they find what they are desperately craving again.

The huge and significant difference with a woman addicted to getting pregnant is that in the vast majority of cases once the extreme high of childbirth is achieved the craving stops immediately and the addiction is cured.

As a society we need to recognise that without Womankind’s addiction to producing offspring the human race would not be around for very long, the world would come to a standstill.  We need to do everything we can to help all those women of the world who need a little longer to achieve their ultimate high of having a baby as their contribution to the continuation of mankind.

Writing our book ‘Dreams Do Come True’ was our way of helping someone out there to realize the dream that eventually came true for us when we got our baby. The proceeds from sales of the book go to St Marys Hospital in Manchester which is where it began for us all those years ago and we have agreed with the hospital that the money goes directly to couples who are on their IVF programme. Our sole intent is that someday soon a baby will be born to a couple who are going through exactly what we went through for all those years and then why stop at one!? We want you to help us cure someone’s ‘addiction’ and all you have to do is buy a copy of the book and I promise you a good read into the bargain and if you or someone you know is suffering from infertility then I truly hope that reading about us can in some way inspire you to keep on believing that soon your dream will indeed come true! You can buy the book here!! http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dreams-Do-Come-True-Bankruptcy/dp/190829308X/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1375797593&sr=1-2&keywords=dreams+do+come+true )

Now here’s the best thing to this particular addiction….in complete contrast to heroin addiction, Trudie tells me that the initial high of giving birth not only kills the craving but it then begins the journey to greater highs each and every day for the rest of your life as you appreciate the wonderment of having a child and from the great depths of despair and wanting to die she now wants to live forever….