Betty on a Box

Well everybody’s doing it. Even my friend Momo has managed to go and get herself knocked up, with twins, no less! Awesome news. And then there’s Ballerina, who’s about to pop one out into a pool of water surrounded by midwives any day. And Teesh who managed it while climbing Machu Pichu and BB who just dreamed of it and it just happened. But a few years ago – well before any of these young’uns  jumped on the wagon – Jazzy Jeff and I decided that we sort of wanted a kid of our own. We decided it in much the same laconic way that we decided to get married.

Betty: Hey Jeff, what do you reckon? Wanna hook up?
Jazzy Jeff: You mean “marriage”?
Betty: Yeah.
Jazzy Jeff: Alright.
Betty: Alright then. I’ll tell my folks.
Jazzy Jeff: Ok.

I know, truly romantic. An inspiration for all of the kids out there. But here we are, 14 and a bit years later, so it couldn’t have been that bad.So anyway, there we were sitting on the couch and Jazzy might have been doing something mind-numbingly creative on the laptop while i was knitting or some such thing and I sighed: “I’m a bit bored, Jazzy Jeff. We should get another dog. Or have a kid.”

Jazzy Jeff: Yoyo and Peaches couldn’t handle another member of the pack. A kid’ll be better.
Betty: Cool.
Jazzy Jeff: Alright.

Well that was around three years ago. But who’s counting? And, let me tell you something, for some of us, no amount of temperature taking, Maybe Baby fern finding, charting or legs in the air is going to do the trick. Making babies is not the cinch I thought it would be! The fact that I am of a certain age may have something to do with it but, whatever. So around a year ago, maybe more, I headed off to Frank’s obstetrician – the guy who managed to show up after the birth – and told him I wanted him to fix me up. A bit of investigation and lots of umming and aahing later and Jazzy Jeff and I started IVF last November. Me being me, I did as little research about it as I possibly could, things like, will the medication make me fat? If I have sextuplets, can I loan them out to make extra money – a la Mary-Kate and Ashley? And other such important matters.

I’ve had one cancelled cycle, and am on my second real cycle. I had three eggs collected in January, two were fertilised by Jazzy Jeff’s manly seed but only one made it to implantation and that one didn’t make it. Over the past few months I’ve endured the pill, twice daily nasal sprays that lead to the most delightful sinus headaches, nightly injections – one that I had to give myself on the plane on my way back from China last week. It went something like this: Me standing in very hygienic economy class toilet preparing syringe. Needle goes into belly and I slowly plunge. Plane hits turbulence and loses altitude for a moment. Needle comes out mid plunge. Plane regains altitude and needle plunges in as “fasten seatbelts” sign starts to ping.


And today I had three more eggs collected (I’m a veritable battery hen) and I find out tomorrow if they’re ready to go. And then I got to thinking, if Momo can do it, maybe I can too. So I said to the embryologist: “Hey, I’ve changed my mind, stuff this one child business, whack all of them in, as many as you can, all of them.” And the cute embryologist looked at me in my blue paper slippers, hair net and possibly too much make up for surgery and said: “Legally, two is the maximum in Australia”. (There go my dreams). But really, it’s not all bad and way more fun than watching So You Think You Can Dance, Australia. Oh, and I’ve discovered that I have a thing for general anesthetics – that moment of absolute silence as you  count backwards from 10, 9, 8…