Trying

‘Here again, Mr Cossey?’ asked the young Spanish embryologist, shooting me a welcoming smile as I followed him down the corridor. He had recognised me by sight and that wasn’t good. I was now the one thing you don’t want to be in a fertility clinic. A regular. Martha wanted a baby. Mark wanted a baby. What’s the worst that could happen? In four years of baby-making boot camp, Mark and Martha face The Calendar, the joy of sober, scheduled sex, hostile cervical mucus, IUI and IVF. Through a combination of ignorance and outrage, Mark survives ejaculating into a small jar, stabbing his wife, having his sperm turned pink and group sex with whales. Written with genuine laugh-out-loud humour and complete honesty, Trying is a noholds-barred welcome to the world of the infertile written by a man who has lived through it all and come through with his ultimate dream realised – his own family. It says a lot when you can call two years of sleepless nights a happy ending.