Getting Pregnant

Having to get regular blood tests as part of the testing for our infertility problem was bad enough, but I hadn’t reckoned with the queue at the clinic.

There are lots of reasons why women doing fertility treatment need regular blood tests and ultrasounds – for simple tracking to start off with, or to regulate their cycle using particular drugs, or to monitor them for IVF procedures – and that meant that every morning outside my clinic there was a long line of women waiting to get in. This clinic preferred to do all the tests themselves so the results were immediately available, which made sense, but also made for a queue.

The first time I got there, I arrived just before the opening time of 7.30am but found I was about tenth in line. All of these women (me included) had to get to work after their blood test so I soon learned the trick of arriving much, much earlier. It was a sad state of affairs, really – here was a bunch of women with so much in common – age, gender, medical problems – but nobody really wanted to talk to anybody else. I tried at first, but didn’t find too many people in the mood for a chat, and as I went further through the process I understood why. For example, one morning a woman who’d already been told she was pregnant was in the line in front of me, and while everyone is happy for her, pretty much the last person a bunch of infertile women want to talk to is a pregnant one. I also heard sad stories about multiple unsuccessful attempts at IVF conception and of course, plenty of depressing grumbles about waiting in line. In fact, compared to the queuing experience, the blood tests were easy.

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