Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Can I really do this? Even being a confident person,
a motivated person, a person that can ignore opinions of
those who are misinformed or do not understand, self doubt
can still creep in. I thought my self confidence would
(00:32):
only accelerate as I grew older. In reality, I think
youthful naivety at times can be more powerful than lafe experience.
At the end of part three of this podcast series,
I felt like I was getting off the rollercoaster ride.
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I had found my support team. Access needs were going
to be taken seriously. It was now time I was
actually going to freeze my eggs. If you've ever been
through the process of IVF, you know the house of
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horrors that could lie ahead. No one can tell you
what will happen once you go in. Your story will
be unlike any other. You just have to enter into
the unknown and look forward to the day that you
exit out the other side, ideally with the result you
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can live with. Social media has a way of amplifying
whatever is on your mind. The more I thought about IVF,
the more my feed flooded with baby bumps, embryo transfers,
and baby names I love but won't be using videos
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motherhood was trending on my algorithm. I will always remember
the day that Michelle Andrews podcast Glass dropped, if I'm
being really honest. When I first found out about Glass,
my first thought was, Oh God, I'm never going to
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be able to present my story to the professional level
that Michelle from Shameless Fame would. She's a trained journalist
and a true success. Still, I could not wait for
Michelle's familiar voice to fill my empty house. Within ten
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minutes of listening to Glass, I felt so seen. Her
story was so different to mine, But hearing the emotional
toll it took on her to confront the fact that
you may never become a mother hit to the core
of my heart. Michelle's story helped so many women, and
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I was one of them. I listened to all three
episodes back to back and then rated at five stars
on Apple Podcasts. As soon as they ended, I no
longer worried about the comparison of what Glass would be
to Eggs. There is room for every story, including mine.
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I wondered how Michelle was feeling at that very moment.
Her thoughts now laid bare for thousands of listeners. If
you've ever read any information on how to get your
body ready for IVF. You'll know it's very important to
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ensure both your physical and mental health are in top shape.
Being disabled and largely immobile, I am hyper aware of
everything I can do to keep my less than perfect
body running okay. So I wasn't too phazed with the
advice to eat healthy, stop drinking alcohol, and take prenatal vitamins.
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Unusually for me, it was my mental health I had
to work on. Looking back with you with hindsight now,
it isn't surprising to think that having to fight for
your right to do something to your own body for
your future was bound to take a toll, and it
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certainly had. There is never a good time to lose
a pet. But in amongst this story, my beloved dog
Harley passed away fourteen blissful years of chocolate brown eyes
fell with devotion and companionship had disappeared. Four days after
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you died, I caught COVID for the first time in
my sick bed. Grieving my dog alone was one of
the hardest weeks of my life. Losing my dog made
me realize how desperately I wanted to give love to
someone else, how much love and care I have inside me.
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I guess you could say I was as motivated as
I was emotional to freeze my eggs. If you've been
playing along for this whole story, you know that blood
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tests from my deeply set veins were proving tricky. Now
that I was going to freeze my eggs, I had
to do more blood tests. Yes, I made the mistake
of ringing my local hospital emergency department, where I had
previously had blood taken with the aid of an ultrasound machine.
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I wanted to let them know I was coming and
to expect me, even though we'd done it before. This
phone call was a dumb decision. In retrospect, I was
told by the nurse on the phone not to attend
to the hospital. I and my blood test were not
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considered an emergency. As a result, the doctor would likely
not see me no matter how long I waited in
that emergency room. Good luck, they said, and hung up.
Not knowing what else to do, I rang all the
head officers of all the major pathology labs in Victoria.
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Each person that aired to the phone ended the call resolute.
Not one location of over one hundred pathology slash blood
draw locations had an ultrasound machine available for use. I
was told multiple times to go to my local hospital
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emergency department, ring a ring a rosy around in circles.
I went, understanding the issues I was having. Even the
team at Number one Fertility attempted to do a blood draw,
but we were also unsuccessful on that occasion. As I
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closed my door arriving home after yet another failed attempt,
I could not believe, after everything, all my advocating, all
my fighting for my reproductive rights, that I still could
not freeze my egg now because of an ultrasound machine.
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My parents were currently on a plane flying home from
tropical North Queensland. I decided to pack a bag and
spend the night with them so I could try and
plan what I should do next. How I was ever
going to get this blood test. I was crying as
I locked my front door to get into my car
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to drive to them. It happened so quickly. One minute
I was rolling down my ramp, the next my body
was in the air. All I saw in front of
me was my concrete driveway. My hands were stuck and
unable to protect myself As I fell, my face hit
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the ground first. I had finally found a way of
getting blood out of me. I had not fallen out
of my chair since I was eight years old. Back then,
I was mucking around with friends and hadn't fully mastered
how to expertly drive a wheelchair on playground tempark. Back then,
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my friends ran for help. Then the school's nurse patched
me up, and I was quickly safe back in my
wheelchair again. This time, I was thirty four. I was
alone on a June day, unfriendly grace, guys threatening to rain.
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I felt naked, exposed, embarrassed. My wheelchair sat empty. My
first thought when I hit the ground was not oh God,
I am hurt. It was oh God. And now, on
top of everything else, I have to prove that I'm
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still capable of living on my own. I cannot lose
my independence because of one lapse of judgment. I cannot.
I then yelled that yell that no person wants to
use the one we reserve for the day that we're
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in danger. I yelled so loud that my neighbors could
hear me from five doors down as they were answering
emails working from home in front of the hitter. The
builders from across the road were the first or arrive.
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I couldn't see them, but I knew they were young
by the tone of their voices. Panic was rising. More
neighbors came, many who I've known for years, and others
who I met that day, not exactly the first impression
I had hoped for. For over an hour on a
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freezing Melbourne day, lying on cold, hard concrete, cerebral palsy,
muscle spasms occurring in my legs as a form of
protest to the position of my body, bleeding heavily from
my face, waiting for an ambulance, I made small talk
with Katie. Even for me, a person who talks for
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a living, it was a challenge. Later, after I'd been
rescued by the paramedics, who incidentally were both wearing wedding rings,
my godmother sat with me while we waited for my
parents to arrive home from the airport. I would have
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gone to hospital if I had been anyone else, but
even the paramedics said, you know, hospitals don't know how
to care for a disabled person. Peter, if you're okay,
I think you'd be better off under the care of
a loved one, in your own bed, with your medical
equipment tonight. I was relieved they let me stay and
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retreat into my own home, but it just goes to
show how poorly equipped our medical system is for disabled people.
Yet again, I think we all have a type of
person in our orbit who posts online things like you've
got this girl. If it's supposed to happen, the universe
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will give you a sign. Falling on my face felt
like the universe had now practically shouted no stop with
this silly dream. I saw the shock on my friend's
faces as I popped in to see how I was
getting on. I watched them realize in real time that
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I may never look the same again. I was at
rock bottom and there was no way of hiding it
either than putting a paper bag over my head, and
that would make it very tricky to drive my wheelchair.
The fall had gifted me with two black eyes, and
the wound on my head was now starting to get infected.
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My GP warned that my face would likely scar. I
was devastated. I am a vain person. I was told
a few times by family friends when I was young
that I have clearly internalized, well, you might be disabled,
but at least you have a pretty face. Now I
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was disabled without a pretty face. My mum lived with
me for a week after the Great Fall of twenty
twenty four. I can remember her saying to me, people
fall over and hurt themselves all the time, Peter, It's
part of life. But her words, no matter how many
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times she repeated them, did not fill the pit of
worry now in my stomach. How could I possibly freeze
my eggs when there is a clear and ugly representation
on my face that I couldn't even look after myself.
Was I asking for too much? Should I listen to
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this doubt now lingering in my head? After a few weeks,
when my scar was now looking like I'd burnt myself
with hot oil, pimples popping up throughout. As an added bonus,
I started to leave the house. Going down my front
ramp took practice. I now had my own roller coaster
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ride in my very front yard. It turned out I
noticed when I left my house that strangers in the
street stopped asking why I was in a wheelchair. I
think they were scared of the horror. My answer might contain,
how could my scar and my disability not be connected?
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After all, no one has that level of bad luck
then in August, a very special delivery arrived at my
door injections, lots of them. This felt like a milestone.
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One large pink bag that you might receive after a
spa day full of goodies, and one styrofoam box, except
the goodies were far more expensive and wouldn't have been
quite as esthetically pleasing to display on my bathroom vanity.
Both were full of IVF self administered needles. Here we go, eggies,
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it is finally time. The week before I had gone
to a radiologist to get my blood drawn. Like everything
else in this story, nothing was straightforward, but I found
a way. I had picked up the referral along with
blood test tubes from my GP and headed into the city.
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I'm not too proud to tell you that I internally
spoke to my non existent baby when the sonographer found
a vein. To me, the blood looked like the most
beautiful thing, tucked now safely away in tubes ready for testing.
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I felt so happy, even despite the fact I was
three hundred dollars out of pocket, and so the IVF
freezing process could finally start. After fighting, hoping, and crying
a lot of crying for three hundred and thirteen days
I could finally start injecting myself. To say I was
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nervous was no under statement. My stomach was in knots.
I wasn't hungry, which was handy considering that there were
more injections than food in my fridge. The boxes and
boxes took up more shelf space than anything else. My
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secret was hiding in plain sight, waiting for exactly eight pm.
The first night felt like torture. I was shaking like
a leaf by the time the clock showed the time
I had been waiting for. I had spoken to a
nurse that afternoon. In preparation, I had watched all the
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YouTube videos. But despite this, my hands shook as I
held the needle. It's eight o'clock. I kept telling myself,
come on, I was willing myself to pierce it into
my skin. The instruction got lost in transit somewhere. My
internal WiFi was not responding, my hands were not doing
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what I instructed them to do. The needle was not
in my skin. Then, after a long time, everything came
back online and the needle entered my skin. The dosage
number of seating as I pressed the little screen now
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showing zero, meant that I had successfully undertaken my first
injection independently. I knew with practice, over time it would
become easier, but I did wish the Prince Charming was
there to congratulate me. After I was done, I FaceTime
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called with my parents afterwards, was good enough. From then on,
I injected myself every day from day six, twice a day.
The morning injections hurt more than the night injections, with
the medicine feeling hot under my skin. As I answered
emails and sipped coffee, I felt comforted in the fact
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that they had been so many women who had done
this before me. So many women were doing it right
now with me, many in bathroom stalls at work, blocking
out quote meetings that they would never attend in their
calendar so no one would suspect that they were going
through IVF. Bruises began to appear on my stomach, reminders
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of my progress, but making it trickier to find a
spot for the next injection, alternating from side to side.
An unexpected positive consequence of share my story publicly was
I recorded every single injection on my phone. My aim
was to share it with you when I was ready,
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but in actuality It was an invaluable reference for me
to double check which side I needed to inject myself
on that day. If you've ever had your eggs frozen
or undergone IVF, you'll know you need to do an
internal ultrasound. This is to check if your body is
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responding to the injections, if your follicles are growing, if
you're able to move to the next step. I bought
my hoist and my dad for my internal ultrasounds. Dad
was there to operate the hoist so I could be
transferred onto that bed. I'm used to having to rely
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on my parents as an adult, but this experience did
give me a giggle. Once I was safe on the bed,
my dad left the room and sat in the waiting room.
He told me later that he got some very old
looks from other patients. He felt like he needed a
sign that said, I'm here for my daughter. She isn't
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my wife. I'm not a dirty old man undergoing IVF
at seventy eight years old, Thank you very much. From
my perspective, the internal ultrasound was pretty easy, although the
universe was ensuring I was maintaining some humility. As nurses
who had never met before helped me hold my legs apart.
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It didn't matter how it happened. The important thing was
my follicles were counted and we were ready and on
schedule for egg collection. Coordinating your life around IVF can
be a challenge. The night of my trigger injection for
my collection happened to be the night of my neighbors
and you'll get together for street drinks. I had to
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administer three trigger injections backed back at exactly nine forty
pm that night. After hesitating a number of times trying
to find the balance of leaving early but not too
early to be rude to leave, I said good night
and entered my warm house with the yellow front door.
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I couldn't eat dinner. I felt too nervous, knowing how
important it is to get the injections piercing my skin
at the correct time. I set the alarm on my
phone and lined up the three injections on my kitchen
pinch ready to go. I then stared into the middle
distance and waited. With about thirty seconds to go, I
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pinched my bruised skin on my tummy and with the
other hand angled the needle and waited the aggression of
my alarm sounded and it was a go. One injection,
two injections, three injections, all done within a minute. A
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wave of relief then hit me. I have now done
everything I can do. Nothing else is there to be done.
That night, my stomach ballooned, the pain making it hard
to sleep. If you had told me that every egg
in my body had been waiting to be collected, I
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would have believed you. Like most disabled people, I've experienced
many surgeries, but my egg freezing surgery was the easiest
I've ever experienced. I arrived with both my parents at
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Number one Fertility. My car was parked in the private
basement with the surgery being conducted. At Number one Fertility,
I have their own surgical flow. The foyer is like
a fancy hotel, and everything that could be pink is pink.
The nurses were upbeat, bubbly and lovely, without doubt. Apart
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from finding the number of eggs they got out of me,
the best part of my day was seeing a portable
hoist waiting there for me. Not mine, but a hired one.
I could have cried. I nervously asked, has the battery
been charged? After all my fighting for this portable equipment.
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It was all finally happening. The hoist transfer, like the
egg retrieval, went off without a hitch. I ended up
undergoing two rounds of IVF freezing. The impact on my
body was very different from the first to the second experience.
Sure why the first time, when everything was new and
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I still could not get over the fact that it
was actually going to be able to freeze my eggs,
I was really happy overall, almost giddy. I don't really
remember any negative side effects, apart from bloating and feeling
a bit sore, but I do distinctly remember finding myself
scrolling on my phone looking at newborn baby clothes. The
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injections the hormones were making me feel incredibly maternal. The
second time undergoing this process was different. I felt exhausted
and incredibly nauseous. I had morning sickness, drinking ginger tea
like my life depended on it. I struggled to function.
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My body was less up for the fight the second
time round. Doing anything twice is challenging, expensive time can sume,
but also because I'm me, I embarrassed myself twice while
high on drugs in recovery after the surgery, I asked
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the same lovely Irish nurse the same question twice months apart.
If she has a son, could I please marry him?
I would really adore to have an Irish mother in
law just like you. Unfortunately she only had two daughters
both times. I'm not highly educated when it comes to
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medicine and how our medical system works here in Victoria,
but I do know my original idea of specialist that
I spoke about anonymously in the earlier episodes of Eggs
has never contacted me again. Are they still waiting for
me to call them at the end of the month
for an update on their efforts to gain approval for
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me to go through the public hospital system, or had
they simply forgotten about me. I never told them I
had found an alternative specialist in doctor Lynn a number
one fertility. Did I go to my original IVF specialist?
Sort of? I wanted to see what would happen if
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I stopped following up. Did I come up on some
sort of database letting them know a patient is now
seeing a competitor? Or was I a problem that simply
went away? I can't stop thinking about it. If I'd
never found an alternative specialist that was willing to help me.
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Would I still be waiting to freeze my eggs? And
more importantly, how many other women are out there waiting
right now, even after two IVF cycles. I have no
idea if I'll use my eggs. I have no idea
if my eggs are good quality. Oof, they'll survive once
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they are thought. I don't know if this story will
end with a baby, but I do know I've fought
for what is right and for what I wanted, and
I succeeded. Nothing in life is guaranteed, I know that.
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But I've got twenty two eggs and twenty two chances,
and for now that is enough. I would like to
respectfully acknowledge they were wondery and bunn wrong people of
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the call and nation of which I record the podcast today,
and I pay my respects to both elders past and present,
along with actually too those in the First Nation's communities
who are disabled themselves.