The cost of a small house on the outskirts of Bundaberg. Approximately nine general anesthetics. Thirteen kilograms. Severe hair loss. Tiny puncture wounds throughout my body. Two small incision scars. Track marks on my inner arms. Ovarian over-stimulation. Steroids. Litres of introlipid (fat) via IV. Inability to travel. Emotional destruction. Self doubt. Painful bloating. Jealousy.

The cost to one day hold our own little wriggler in our arms = priceless.

This is the real true shit they don’t tell you about infertility in the pretty pastel-coloured flyers they hand out at the doctor’s office.

They won’t tell you how much it’ll make you want to scream every time you read about yet another celebrity pregnancy (that will doubtless end in separation). How you will feel like an utter failure as a woman. That it will baffle you your body which once worked like clockwork has begun shutting up shop for stocktake without your wanting it to. You’ll cry more. At practically everything. Your hormones will rise and fall like Miley’s undies. Dart sharp pangs of jealousy will pierce your heart every time someone else gets up the knock. You will know every single month exactly where you are in your cycle and feel every single inner movement in your ovaries/uterus/gut/tits.

And I promise not to name it North, Rocket or Pear

You will become a hopeless wanting, desperate baby-crazy nutter who will try anything and everything from Chinese herbs to ‘fertility yoga’, scoffing pineapple by the kilo at ovulation and pulling naked headstands at will.

But let’s get one thing straight…no person would ever willingly expose themselves to IVF unless they had to. It isn’t a choice, it’s a compulsory action as a result of shit going on in your body that you have absolutely no mother-fucking-control over. And now, apparently the government is looking at cutting the safety net for infertile couples? Bloody great.

I really hate endings. Let me tell you how much I hate endings. I went into complete meltdown with the last episode of Melrose Place (the original ’90s version not that recent joke of a remake) that I almost required an intravenous of red bull just to get me through the day. You know that feeling when you’re really getting into an awesome book/movie/porno and it goes and ends on you. Ever feel like you just want to stalk the author weekly with your insightful, ’10 reasons why you should write a sequel’? Nope? Just me…okay but you get my drift.

Endings of anything are shitful (except maybe eyebrow threading, I stop taking in air until that shit is done yeeeeoooucch) which is why 2016, January to be precise, is a month that will either spell the end or the beginning…and I have no idea which one. It will be our very last round and by last I mean no-more-reunion-tours final finito finish. We’ll be trying a different protocol and to spare you the intimate details of which I’m usually more than happy to spill but for the sake of others involved who shall remain nameless, let’s just say the both of us will be feeling a bit sore after this one.

A couple of weeks ago we visited the wonderful and ever inventive pioneer of reproductive medicine who is Dr Babies and sitting in his office we finally came to the conclusion I probably didn’t want to hear. That despite the fact we could go on trying for ever and ever after that, eventually everything has to come to an end. The one Willy Wonka golden ticket was that my AMH levels have remained at 7.5, which is what they were three-and-a-half-years-ago. Someone hand me a fucking gold star, quick sticks! If you have no idea what these figures mean (I barely know myself) but it’s basically how many eggs you have left in the carton and let’s just say even though I am now entering my golden years in terms of fertility, all is not completely and utterly lost and shrivelled into tiny black currants.

And that’s where it ends. Or maybe begins. Only the Fertility Gods, or a bloody Leprechaun can make that decision. Three and a bit years, one little tiny embryo that almost made it, a whole lot of emotional, financial and physical suffering – all hinges on one last go. As it stands, in Australia, there is absolutely no government-funded support or counselling offered to couples going through IVF…yet one in six people in this great southern land of ours suffers from infertility? Go figure. Shit needs to change. And by change I don’t mean stripping couples of the chance to make their little baby dreams come true. Love n’hugs LadyMamaG xox