Fellowship

It's amazing how the stories come out of the woodwork when you start to tell people that you're not going to be able to have children naturally. People have shared stories with me of multiple miscarriages, premature births and subsequent deaths, failed adoptions, their own stories of infertility - and not in a way that says "worse things can happen, you know", but in a way that says "I feel your pain".

Today I was at a family funeral and was talking to a relative of my parents' generation whom I've only ever met once before, at my grandmother's funeral a few years ago. A propos of nothing, she made a jokey throwaway remark about the fact that she'd never had children. She then seemed to check herself, paused and then said in a small voice, "Actually, I'd love to have had children, but it didn't happen."

I nodded, also paused, and then said, "We're about to start IVF."

She gave me a huge hug, and I just knew two things - first, she knew exactly what we were going through. And second, that if we don't go through with this treatment, we'll regret it for the rest of our lives.