"...The feelings are infinite when you're in the depths of it, trying to keep your head just a little bit above the water as your legs frantically paddle against the tide that seems so set on washing you beneath its grip and spitting you out, disorientated, and unsure of where to turn next..."

Fertility in Mind

Fertility in Mind is the perfect theme for Fertility Awareness Week not least because fertility consumes such vast parts of people’s headspace. If you are actively in the grips of it, sitting patiently on the periphery or are somewhere on its extensive radar, fertility is always there at the forefront of everything you do. It can become all-consuming. I’m aware everybody’s experience is entirely unique and individual to them but there are most definitely shared experiences within that. It is a minefield to explore and navigate your way through whatever your circumstances, and to anyone in the depths of that, I really hear you. I can, of course, only speak of my own experience and that is through the lens of the LGBTQ+ community. As a same-sex couple, we ventured in, thankfully in retrospect, blithely naïve to the realities fertility would throw at us. Fertility has consumed the bigger part of mine and my partner’s minds for the past four years.

If we’re honest, knowing the mental, physical, emotional, and financial toll this would take on us prior to being in it, there is a strong chance we would have been too scared to jump in. Thankfully, organisations like Fertility Network UK exist with a solid branch to the LGBTQ+ community to help ease the burden on the individual and assist in supporting the dreams of having a family.

I initially wanted to do a short video but feared I couldn’t quite convey the magnitude of this with my often-flailing spoken word. Turning to words on a page to deliver a more longform expression. I’ve got a quiet voice but a loud, pounding heart that beats to the drum of equality. Heartstrings tethered tightly to a heavy weight of injustice that tugs away at your identity, whispering in your ear, ‘it’s because of who you are’. It feels insular. It feels isolating here. Thoughts of all those LGBTQ+ raised families that will never be because of the many barriers up and hoops we must jump through to have a fair go.

Don’t get me wrong, within our experience there was so much light and joy too. Our clinic was undeniably amazing and incredibly supportive through our whole process. We have nothing but love for them and the individuals who guided us through with the utmost care and sensitivity. But sadly, there are so many flaws in the fertility industry for couples or individuals within the LGBTQ+ community. On a micro level, for example, protocol paperwork that fails to recognise same-sex couples within the wording makes you feel different at best and sub-human at worst. We knew for a very long time that we wanted to start a family together and there are other avenues we could explore i.e., adoption. It is never something we have ruled out – we know there are so many children in need of loving, caring homes but we had always felt this desire to experience pregnancy and, if fortunate enough, use our own eggs too. We know adoption deserves an equal measure of thought, care and attention and it wasn’t something we felt ready to commit to. The guilt of this choice is also something that we didn’t quite see coming. There was language from some corners that our sexuality should be a pre-determinate for adopting. We felt guilty and somewhat selfish for not ignoring our biological impulses. Having grown up at a time when it wasn’t commonplace to see people like us raising families, this bred a feeling of unworthiness from a young age. I guess it plays into the idea that still runs through some areas of society that we have ‘chosen’ to love a person of the same gender and therefore our access to fertility should be diminished. This ignores the fact that science has developed to cater to different families needs and perhaps the fertility funding frameworks need to do the same. These little things are not so little when it becomes your only experience of fertility. They mount up and the discrimination on a macro level is palpable. It makes you question your entire self and that is something that chips away during an already intensely stressful time.

We were fortunate enough to reach a point, earlier this year, where the little cry we had so longed for reverberated around the white walls and through the scrubbed-up bodies of the hospital room signifying a welcome end to this chapter of our story and the beginning of our next one. I remember feeling paralysed with an overwhelm that flooded my body. Overwhelmed by the sheer weight of all that had come before. It was the finishing line of an almighty marathon that felt, at times, like there was no end, that we were just constantly taking one step forward and three hundred back. It took us around the houses of every emotion: sadness, anger, resentment, shame, outrage, jealousy, pride, elation. The list seems infinite. The feelings are infinite when you’re in the depths of it, trying to keep your head just a little bit above the water as your legs frantically paddle against the tide that seems so set on washing you beneath its grip and spitting you out, disorientated, and unsure of where to turn next.

We are very aware of how lucky we are to be in this position and do not take it for granted. Our tiny human is currently sound asleep on me, our ribcages rising and falling in perfect synchronicity as I try to precariously type this out on a phone above their resting head. The rain is whipping on the windows, car tyres rush across tarmac, pavement patter and muffled voices of people on their commutes home from work. Life. Life is just happening around us. This is the part that really hurts whilst in the throes of fertility. A wild and beautiful entanglement of incredible highs, awful lows and everything in-between. But it is within those lows when the pain is at the forefront of everything. The world still spins blissfully unaware to your utter internal heartbreak. It’s lonely. In those moments of shattering heartache when an embryo transfer is unsuccessful or the unbearable two week wait to see if an embryo has implanted, the full force of inequality rises up.

As a same-sex couple, the pain of an unsuccessful round of IVF is compounded with the very instant reality that you are going to have to conjure up thousands more pounds to just have another roll of the dice. Our whole experience suddenly became reduced to numbers. If it wasn’t the constant worry of how many eggs would be collected or how many would fertilize, it was the seemingly never-ending costs mounting up and the niggling voice in your ear that, with every transaction from the bank account, affirmed the notion that we are undeserving of the same treatment or funding available to heterosexual couples.

Of course, the costs of IVF are devastating for many heterosexual individuals and couples alike but with a caveat that we, as a same-sex couple, are only entitled to IVF funding if we pay out thousands of pounds beforehand to access multiple rounds of IUI treatment which, if unsuccessful, would only then determine a problem in trying to conceive and thus make us potentially eligible for NHS funding. However, this is also based entirely on a postcode-lottery. In contrast, a heterosexual couple would need to have been unsuccessfully trying for a baby for two years to prove eligibility for the same funding. This of course comes with its own immense emotional turmoil but no financial loss. So, to put into context, within our region, we would have to have been under 35 years of age and paid for six unsuccessful rounds of IUI before even being considered for IVF. This is all whilst knowing that the success rates are marginally higher with IVF than IUI. With fertility decreasing with age, it makes the pressures of the whole process exceptionally time-sensitive and the pressure on the bank account extraordinarily unfair. I realise there is no quick fix when funding is involved, but conversations need to take place to address the stark inequality.

There is a cliché: ‘you can’t put a price on it’ and, of course, I would love that to be true. The sentiment is spot on but, sadly, the reality of that bottomless pit of money is an illusion to the masses, especially against the backdrop of a cost-of-living crisis whereby you find yourselves having to make sacrifices that seem oppressive within a progressive nation.

We went into the process believing that surely a net would catch us when we find ourselves at the deep end with nowhere to turn. We realised very quicky that this was not going to happen, and we would constantly have to keep finding the money if we wanted to keep going. If there’s ever a time for that beast of self-criticism, who mostly lies dormant in my brain, to rear its very ugly head: ‘you should’ve worked harder’ etc etc, it’s now. But it’s important to remember that the system is seemingly rigged against us from the get-go. How can I summarise the feeling? It’s an instantaneous realisation that the playing field is so uneven it is like you are starting the game 10-0 down (replace the score with real money and we are getting close).

Fertility Network UK was a little piece of calm within the often-chaotic world of fertility. They start to level out that playing field. They gave us a voice in a safe space. Being able to converse with people going through similar experiences carried the weight off our shoulders. It provided validation and an LGBTQ+ support system that can catch you when you are falling. It re-discovered our confidence in our thought processes that can otherwise become extremely blurred. Airing feelings with zero judgement enables more collective power and energy to recognise and elevate the shared experiences and challenges our community faces within fertility. If there’s anything I’ve learnt, then it is to be thankful for the pioneers who came before us who fought for the rights we do have. We stand on the shoulders of those giants with a responsibility to keep carrying the baton forwards for the people that come after us. Progress is incremental: time + change, but if gone unchecked, there is always a very real risk of it being ripped away, especially in a world that looks increasingly polarised. To keep pushing at the doors of change and creating a fairer society, inclusive of LGBTQ+ rights, we must locate the bedrocks of a united experience which can ultimately generate a loud enough voice to be able to do so. Fertility Network UK facilitate connection and enable the shared experience to be uncovered within the personal. Highlighting the need for a change in the fertility landscape for LGBTQ+ people in the, hopefully, not too distant future. We have felt empowered, for example, to lobby local CCGs to try and change policy to be more inclusive in their funding commitments. Fertility Network UK has been fundamental in enabling us to maintain a good grasp on our own mental health through fertility and we are very grateful to have had their support.

Vicki & Cheryl