I'm a lonely little petunia in an onion patch...

Yeah. I've been listening to that song, by Heap, for a while now. It's short, but plays in my mind a lot.

The hospital was small and inconspicuous-a bright blue sign outside let us know we'd driven right past it, but we turned around and figured our way around the neighborhood, coming at last to the wing we were looking for. As we walked in, I was nervous-would it be ok? Would they say the things I had dreamt about? Would Angus lose his temper (he hates doctors' offices)? We made our way through a largely empty hospital-this is what it's like to go private health care, this is how it feels like to set the checkbook on the counter with a solid thunk-and found where we needed to be.

First off, a visit with the counselor, to make sure we knew what we were getting in to, to understand the implications. She was bedecked as one would expect a counselor to be. Chunky boho jewelry and glasses on a chain. A wild mane of reddish blond hair, and fingers that moved in explanation of her words, a chorus line to the main tune.

Her purpose was to, above all, assess that we were doing what we were doing for the right reasons. Were we donating half of my eggs to help someone, or because the treatment is then free? We told her the truth-altruism is a big drive, but the payment factor is a big one. We're not fabulously wealthy, we don't have £3000 to be throwing around at the drop of a hat.

I was conscious that the entire time we discussed Angus and I were being regarded and assessed'¦one wrong move and the donation would be called over. We wouldn't be able to do it. I felt that I should keep the Great Double Stuff Pigout of 1998 should be kept to myself, as a sense of humor might not go down well. More on the counselor session another day, but suffice to say we passed the counselor session (approved, apparently) and then sat outside in the waiting room. While I was thumbing through a three year old IKEA magazine, my nose suddenly and spontaneously burst into a major nose-bleeding session.

I looked anxiously at the nurses, wondering if my name was being stricken off the list now. Nose-bleeder, they would say, tsk-ing. Can't have that for a baby! She's so off the list!

Angus got called into his special room to leave his little pot of honey behind. We hadn't had sex for 4 days at that point, so I wondered if his swimmers would come out swinging. Then we trooped in to speak to the nurse about my cycle.

My IVF cycle will be timed exactly with the donee mother's. It's a one-to-one relationship, I will be going through a cycle with another woman that I will never meet, or even know the name of. When my system is suppressed-thereby throwing me into a state of menopause-hers will be, too. This is the rough part, the 'I'm going crazy and I'm taking you with me' stage. When they test that the chemicals have indeed worked-and I will be taking shots for this one, not the nose spray-then I will be stimulated within an inch of my ovaries lives'. I have have effectively shot from a total shutdown of my ovaries to sending them into hyperdrive.

When they take out my eggs, half will automatically go to the other woman. Quality will not be assessed at that time, it's a straight division. If it's an uneven number of eggs, I get the extra. If I produce less than 8 I can choose to give them all to her and then have the whole next cycle to myself if I want.

When it's time to take the eggs out, in England they put you under general anesthetic, which I personally prefer. The eggs are matched with Angus' sperm, freshly donated that day, and the two that develop the best will be put back in, thereby giving me a 30% chance of success. I can donate twice, but if I donate twice and I haven't gotten pregnant yet and the other woman has, I can have a third time.

The nurse was part of the original pioneering IVF work with Louise Brown, the world's first 'test tube baby'. She has been doing this for ages. She patted my hand with her own be-ringed hand and looked into my eyes. 'Your chances are great.' She said kindly. 'I would say you will get pregnant.'

And that was the second time I nearly cried.

The nurse reviewed my info with me, and we uncovered something interesting-based on the amount of sheer and total agony I was in the day we did egg retrieval for Egg and Bacon's group, it would appear my ovaries were hyper-stimulated. It would also explain why the fertilization of the retrieved eggs was so low (I had 20 retrieved, which is on the border of being too high. Of the 20, only 13 fertilized, and there should've been more than that). The nurse pondered, and also wondered aloud if that's what caused me to lose Egg and Bacon-hyper-stimulation is very, very hard on the body. Most pregnancies can't continue if hyper-stimulation has occurred.

And then I did cry a bit, quietly and to myself, while Angus and the nurse discussed on. I might have lost my babies due to carelessness. I might have lost my Egg and Bacon due any number of reasons, but I had never factored on this one.

The nurse and Angus discussed options, and she mentioned a couple that has done this 14 times. I shuddered at it, and Angus mentioned that we weren't that desperate. He's right-we absolutely won't be doing this 14 times. But the nurse pointed to me and said that, for women, the pull and drive and desire and constant fucking need to have a baby is sometimes so overwhelming that it's nearly all we think about, all we dream of.

And then I teared up again, because she's right.

She's right.

So we're on to step two-meeting the doctor and setting up more tests and some schedules. To be an egg donator I have to have over £1000 worth of tests, which the hospital will pick up the tab for. It includes screens for diseases I have never heard of, and chromosomal typing to make sure I'm healthy. I had to give a detailed medical background of every ailment known to my family tree.

She said if we started now, we could get in one cycle before the holidays, before the clinic closes. I could be implanted by the end of the year, and find out over the holidays if it worked. Angus noted that we are traveling over the holidays, and it would be harder on me (and the other recipient mother). I completely agree, plus there's the other issue-I lost Egg and Bacon over New Years'. I couldn't face the empty horror and fear that there could be a repeat.

We leave and I am full of babies, thoughts and feelings and images and hopes, all of a family with Angus, of gurgling child-laughter at holidays, of attending school plays, of feeling my heart explode seeing Angus tuck in our child in bed. I can't recall a time I've ever wanted something more. We go to have a curry for lunch and head home.

And that night, we had an argument that went off like an atom bomb. Our worst fight ever. The radiation settled around the house, poisoning us. The black cloud stayed over us for days, finally getting chased away by the burgeoning sun. Things were said that were horrible to say, things were forgiven, but for two days I walked around with my legs cut off at the knee, and in the afternoons I crawled into bed and laid there, unable to get up, unwilling to answer the phone, incapable of feeling anything.

In the fight, Angus told me he didn't want more children.

And when he said that, I felt my world end.

He's explained the context now, and the confusion has been cleared. It's true he doesn't actively want children in the same way I do-my want is almost tangible, it's something you can put your tongue to and taste. It tastes like cotton candy and the rain that comes off an umbrella, and it stays on the fingers and lips in much the same way. But Angus doesn't want children the same way he doesn't want an apple-his is not the same tangible, active want as mine. Give him an apple and he'll take it, enjoy it, love it and be glad for it. The same, he hopes, will be true for a baby-he didn't actively want the two children he has from his previous relationship but he loves them to the end of the earth. I wonder if that's how a lot of men are, that a child is harder for them to actively want like a woman does-looking at my colleagues, I suspect a lot of them feel that way, too. But for two days I thought that babies were off the menu. I felt humiliated for going to the doctor, I felt embarassed for hoping, for dreaming, for yearning to have an addition to the family that I am already in love with being in.

And now? Now it feels tender, and I'm not sure how to talk about it all, I am not allowing myself to feel anything. The nurse instructed me to take folic acid and pregnancy vitamins now, so on the kitchen counter they sat, untouched and unopened, a picture of a pregnant woman lighting up the vitamin box, infectting my kitchen counter with her joy. I finally opened them up just before we went on holiday and started taking them.

I think and hope we are ok. The hard part isn't even here yet, the injections, the tears, the whispered transactions with the devil to make it work. We won't (hopefully?) start the process until after the New Year, so new hormones, no agony of schedules. I think he's feeling the pressure, and I am too. I'll be paired up with a woman who wants to have a baby as much as I do, and together we'll live in separate homes and run parallel lives of drugs and dreams. We'll be making dinner for the house and not even know that we are both thinking the same thought: Dear God, please let it work this time, I am running out of time, Dear God, please please please.

I'm a lonely little petunia in an onion patch.

-H.

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