buffet. I glanced back down at the box and laughed out loud. If only I’d known, I thought.
My phone vibrated. I ignored it.
‘Well, I know now,’ I said to myself as I pulled out one of the tests, ‘that even with the aid of a NASA-engineered ovulation detector, we had no hope of conceiving.’
Our first Harley Street consultation had been over a year ago, but since then, the doctor’s words had been bouncing back and forth in my head like a ping-pong ball.
‘Intra-cytoplasmic sperm injection is the only option,’ he’d said.
He’d gone on to explain in medical terms that I had the follicles of a fifty-year-old heroin addict, my uterine lining was thinner than an Olsen sister, and my ovaries were about as useful as a snorkel in a tsunami.
My stomach churned. This round of treatment was our third and final chance. I took a deep breath and pulled out the test. My heart beat faster. I could feel the pulse in the tips of my fingers. I lost my grip for a second and it slipped from my grasp. I caught it swiftly with my other hand, as if it were the Olympic torch.
I’d learned from the fertility forums that it was better to wee into a container, to ensure the stick was properly immersed, rather than hold it under a stream of urine. The method was more accurate, ‘Mum to Three Snow-babies’ had advised. I rested the test, lid still on, on the cistern and spread the information leaflet open. I already knew it by heart. It didn’t matter. I read it again. Just to be sure.
It is best to conduct the test in the morning after a night’s sleep. The urine is more concentrated.
I couldn’t recall sleeping, although my uncompromised pelvic floor muscles had at least managed to hold off any bladder evacuation.
My hands were trembling as I reached for an old lid from a toothpaste pump dispenser. It was the perfect size for collecting a sample, ‘Here’s Hoping’ had explained on the Fertility Friends forum. I sat down on the toilet and held it under me until I felt warm urine overflowing from the top. Once I’d carefully submerged the test in the container, I closed my eyes, visualising the word ‘pregnant’ in my mind, hoping it might somehow instruct the test to comply. Moments later, when I found myself chanting and rubbing my womb, unwittingly re-enacting a hypno-spiritual video I’d seen on YouTube, I realised that I was in dire need of distraction. Instinctively, I went to call Nick, but then I remembered he had an important breakfast meeting, so instead I called Matthew.
He answered on the first ring.
‘What?’ he asked.
I could hear a child screaming in the background so I raised my voice.
‘The two-minute wait,’ I said.
I heard more wailing and then a noise that sounded like something choking. Matthew issued a reprimand and then came back on the line.
‘OK, Ellie,’ he said, retaining the disciplinarian tone for me too. ‘Move away from the vision board. That photo of you and Nick cradling a Photoshopped baby isn’t helping anyone.’
‘It’s worse than that,’ I said. ‘I was chanting.’
Matthew laughed. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘two minutes is but a mere blip on the timeline of life. I’ve got another seventeen years to get through until these two are off my hands.’
I let out a deep sigh and flopped down onto my bed. ‘It’s not just the two minutes,’ I said. ‘It’s all that came before it too. Surely you understand that?’
Matthew laughed again. ‘Ah, but I do, my sweet.’ He paused for a moment to intercept a further misdemeanour then continued. ‘I remember precisely what preceded this current bout of neurosis.’ He took a deep breath and then exhaled. ‘This all began long before you started fretting about your inability to breed.’
I’d been hoping for distraction not ego annihilation. ‘What did?’ I asked.
‘Well,’ he said, in a manner that implied he was drumming his fingers on the table. ‘Let’s consider Eleanor Rigby’s life journey so far, shall we? What were you doing before this all-consuming quest for conception?’
‘I don’t know, working?’
He sighed. ‘Ellie, you spent five years planning your wedding.’
I went to speak but Matthew continued. ‘Prior to that you spent four years aggressively soliciting a proposal from Nick. Before that you engineered a career that enabled you to personally interview thousands of eligible men.’
‘And women,’ I said, ‘as a matchmaker. I was trying to help people.’
He chuckled. ‘This behaviour, although disturbing enough in isolation, was preceded by many other alarming antics: a shambolic engagement, two disastrous cohabitations, fours years cyberstalking Hugh Jackman, a stretch hyper-parenting a pet rat and six years fanatically coddling two Cabbage Patch dolls.’ He paused and took a deep breath. ‘Ellie, you’ve been looking for love since the day you were born.’
‘No, I haven’t,’ I said, pulling myself up from the bed. ‘And FYI, Bungle was a guinea pig. Not a rat.’
Matthew must’ve handed the phone over to his toddler, because all I could hear was the choking sound, then wailing, then manic laughter, then some salivary noises, then more wailing then Matthew coming back on the line.
‘There you go,’ he said. ‘That’s what your life will sound like if you get what you wish for.’
I rolled my eyes. ‘It can’t be all bad.’
‘It’s not all bad,’ he replied, ‘but it won’t make you happy. Just like marriage won’t make you happy. And kids certainly won’t make your marriage happy.’ He paused for a moment, seemingly to wipe a child’s orifice, then continued. ‘If you kept abreast of the latest research, as you should, you would know that a recent study showed a couple’s happiness decreases proportionately with the birth of each child.’
I rolled my eyes. ‘Who conducted that study?’ I said. ‘Was it you, interviewing yourself?’
He laughed. ‘We’re conditioned to think we need to have children in order to be content, when in fact, if we bother to look at the evidence, the opposite is true.’ He let out a deep sigh. ‘Why else do you think Lucy went back to work and left me looking after the little buggers?’
I giggled. ‘You love it really.’
‘No,’ he said, ‘I really don’t. I love them, of course, but I don’t especially enjoy sacrificing my every human right in the name of positive parenting.’ He moved away from the phone to confiscate some crayons then continued. ‘Freud said that our need to procreate is driven by a fear of death.’ He went on to adopt a lady therapist voice. ‘Do you fear death, Eleanor Rigby?’
I rolled my eyes. ‘The only one who should fear death is you, if you don’t shut up.’
He was still laughing when I hung up.
I checked the timer on my phone. Twenty seconds to go.
I flopped down on the bed again, feeling the weight of my body
