Facing the Dragon: Meeting Life’s Challenges Head On – Joanne Jones

Joanne Jones was just 16 when she was hired as a copywriter by Leo Burnett Advertising agency in Sydney. Her subsequent 35 years in advertising included a move to Hong Kong in the late 1970s. Joanne trained and worked as a counsellor in Sydney in the 1990s for several years, before writing her memoir When the Bough Breaks (Finch Publishing). Ms Jones is also a published poet with a particular love of haiku. Joanne Jones joined Elizabeth Lancaster to address The Sydney Institute on Tuesday 5 April 2011.

 

FACING THE DRAGON: MEETING A LIFE CHALLENGE HEAD ON

JOANNE JONES

Elizabeth and I chose the title for our combined talk tonight for various reasons, not the least that it ties together our two stories, which on the surface may seem very different, but in fact have several common themes. Two women, one in her twenties, another in her early thirties, come across life-changing obstacles that simply aren’t going to go away. Neither of us expected to encounter these particular obstacles – who ever does? – and we had no idea what the future would hold as a consequence, but nor were we the type to back down readily from a challenge.

Both Elizabeth and I were living overseas at the time. I was in Hong Kong, married to my second husband, Tim, riding the crest of the wave both professionally and personally when I found out I could never conceive naturally. That discovery came at 35, after two years of doctors, tests, drugs and treatments – expecting that every month I would find myself pregnant. It was after an eventual laparoscopy that I was given the very final verdict: “The only way you’ll ever have a baby is through IVF or adoption.”

It was about this time that Tim and I incorporated the phrase, “Face the dragon” into our relationship. This was the first major hurdle we had come up against as a unit, and it seemed appropriate, living in Hong Kong, where even the name Kowloon means “Nine dragons”, referring to the nine hills that form the dragon’s backbone. Over the years, we went on to use that phrase every time we came up against something where the immediate temptation is either to back off, run screaming or lie on the ground and kick your legs in the air. “Facing the dragon” helps gear us up for battle and raises our spirits while we go about it.

Still in its pioneer years, I knew next to nothing about In Vitro Fertilisation and my doctor wasn’t much better informed. The good news was that I could do it in Sydney, the bad news was that there was a waiting list of two years. Two years, when you’re 35 and everyone around you is having their first or second child, is a painfully long time. Especially with such an uncertain outcome. So I set about trying to get around the obstacle. I had a botched IVF treatment at a Hong Kong teaching hospital, I went to faith healers, I drank Chinese herbs until I was nauseated. I rang every adoption agency I could find only to be told I was too late, too old or the wrong religion.

And I changed. While I still held down a demanding job and kept up with my friends, my internal focus had shifted.

I now lived in a world of fertility drugs, ovulation charts and suspended motherhood. Until finally, I made it to the top of the list at the Royal North Shore.

I entered that program with all the optimism of an Olympian. And, as Tim says, we gave it our best shot. But after another half dozen failed attempts, our resources were dwindling and so was my health. It was time to walk away.

One of the reasons we left Hong Kong after 10 years, was that I had a last IVF attempt up my sleeve. We had a frozen embryo in storage at the Royal North Shore and everything now rode on this one, microscopic speck of life to give us our family. I was in my late thirties but still utterly determined that this would work according to plan – my plan if not anybody else’s.

 

Excerpt from When the Bough Breaks

 

I felt in good physical and emotional shape for the treatment ahead of me and reasoned that, without the need for air travel or my return to work, our embryo had a fighting chance of going full term.

 

The last treatment cycle began just like all the others. We had daily visits to the hospital for blood and urine collection, and while I wasn’t on Perganol to stimulate egg production, I was given injections to balance my hormones and help create the ideal environment for our embryo’s successful transfer to my body. I was in high spirits, confident, happy and relaxed.

 

Friends from Hong Kong rang a few days before I was due for embryo transfer.

 

“We’re in Sydney! Love to see you. Can we come round?” They walked in, a reminder of the stylish Hong Kong life we’d shared. She was beautifully dressed, carefully made up, wearing the kind of jewellery worn every day in Hong Kong but, in more casual Sydney, it seemed almost tacky. We were in shorts and probably had more than a few dog hairs on us. Clearly it was we who had changed …

 

“How’s Frozen Freddy?” asked my friend, Armani sundress showing off her sleek, suntanned shoulders.

 

“Who?” I wasn’t being dumb. I just didn’t make the connection.

 

“Frozen Freddy! That’s what we’ve nicknamed your embryo.” She smiled at her husband, then back at me. “Let’s have a toast to Freddy! David, open the champagne we brought.”

 

I didn’t feel like champagne. And I didn’t like my embryo’s nickname. I can’t say why, exactly. Perhaps it belittled what was, for me, one of the most vital times of my life. And I wasn’t thinking in terms of a boy or a girl. I just wanted it to go from sixteen cells, to thirty two, to …

 

I was alone when the clinic called. “Your embryo didn’t survive the thawing process.” What? What do they mean? My mind struggled to comprehend what it had never considered. “We’re sorry.”

 

It was over.

Now came the greater challenge, and this is what two thirds of my book is about.

Having spent ten years fixated on one goal, ten years feeling removed from mainstream while you’re trying your best not to be, ten years where you’ve put your time, money, passion and energy into something that’s gone belly up – you’ve got to put it behind you. Rebuild your life as quickly as possible, and try to regain some of what you’ve lost along the way. But as with most things in life, it wasn’t going to be that simple:

Excerpt from When the Bough Breaks

“I hope you understand that we may not see as much of you now that we’ve got kids. It’s not that we won’t want to spend time with you, but we’ll be busy doing family stuff.”

 

I looked at Robin oddly. We’d just been to see his wife and newborn daughter at the Royal Women’s Hospital in Paddington, then gone on to dinner with him and two other couples. Was it really necessary to make that remark when we’d been friends for years? I felt peculiar, suddenly isolated.

 

“I don’t think it’ll be a problem. We like being around young kids, especially when we’re close to their parents.” I glugged my champagne and looked around the table. Each couple had started a family. We’d been at their weddings, knew them well. Was my infertility going to alter these friendships? Surely not. As well as being a confidante in troubled times, I’d been jubilant when their pregnancies were announced. I’d braved the dreaded hospital visits that left me feeling gutted. No, Robin was mistaken. Things would be the same as they’d always been.

 

That conversation took place eighteen months after we’d closed the door on In Vitro Fertilisation. It wasn’t the first time I’d realised we were going to be different from most of our peer group, but it was the first time I realised our not having children was going to make a difference to them.

Getting on with life included moving to a new home which we loved. For five months, things went swimmingly. I was getting regular freelance work which was occupying my time as well as feeding my psyche, we were making new friends and generally getting back into the rhythm of things. Then one night, Tim walked in the door and said, “I’ve lost my job.” It was the beginning of the recession of the early 1990s and the end of our short dream run.

After a year of unsuccessful job-hunting, we rented out our new house, looked for temporary homes for our RSPCA-sourced, much loved two dogs and cat, and moved back to Hong Kong. A friend of mine had commented years earlier that I was like one of those blow-up toys with sand at the base that you could hit repeatedly and it would always bounce back to the upright position. Not this time.

I missed home, family, and friends enormously. We moved into a small, sterile, serviced apartment where you couldn’t even open the windows. I stopped sleeping. My body closed down triggering a vain hope of pregnancy. For a while, it was a serious struggle to stay above the water line.

But once again, good work opportunities and an optimistic outlook helped us make the best of the two additional years we were away, though I grieved deeply for all that I had lost, and for all that, barring a miracle, I would never have.

When we came home for the second time, I turned my attention to work. I wanted a fresh start. Something to occupy me on every level. I moved away from the advertising industry which had employed me as a copywriter since I was 16, and did a two year counselling course, graduating with a diploma and a truckload of invaluable life skills.

I had told my colleagues the day I joined the counselling college, that I wanted to write a book to help other women faced with infertility, and because of that desire, I needed to heal myself first.

After qualifying, I worked as a counsellor for the next few years, seeing clients with a wide range of life problems. The expression, “Everyone’s fighting a battle of some kind,” is never more evident than when you’re working with people in a safe, non-judgmental environment. They can tell you their stories without the need to censor, without fear of recrimination. I was constantly reminded of the sameness of the human experience, rather than what separates us.

In 2002, I lost my mother and my favourite dog in the same week and felt like a hole had been blown right through my centre. Against all wisdom, it was just two weeks later that we drove home from Picton with a very large Golden Retriever puppy occupying my lap. Having a young, arthritis-free dog to walk again reconnected me with our community and some of the wonderful people in it. This last excerpt tells how the apparent simplicity of belonging, can in itself be life-changing:

Excerpt from When the Bough Breaks

It is one of the coldest winter days for a long time. I dig out my padded jacket, not worn last year, and button it up before opening the front door. The chill goes straight through me, and as I put the lead on Dougal, my breath hangs in the air.

 

We walk across the oval, still sodden from the fierce June storm, and up a side street. A car drives past and I lift my hand in recognition. I couldn’t see the occupant, but I know the car belongs to a neighbour. My hands are frozen, turning blue. I shove one deep in my pocket while the other clings to the lead. I’m sniffing from the cold and my eyes water. I walk as fast as I can to get the blood circulating. It’s ten past eight.

 

The main road is heavy with morning traffic. My head jerks up at a car’s horn. My friend waves on the way back from her school run. I turn a corner. Another car honks. A second friend and his kids, all waving like mad. I imagine the kid’s yelling, “There’s Dougal!” Now a car toots going in the other direction. I wave at a friend’s husband on his way to the office; at the same time yet another neighbour drives past with her two children.

 

Warm now, we make our way back to the oval opposite our house where a good friend joins me for the last bit of the walk. Her eldest son is about to go overseas. She’s sad. I commiserate. On the front veranda, I wipe the mud from Dougal’s feet. Two kookaburras and a butcher bird watch me, turning their heads as a neighbour walking to the station calls out a greeting.

 

For the first time in my life, I’ve put down roots.

 

It was with this sense of belonging, of having come full circle, and with enough emotional distance from the two previous decades that I began to write When The Bough Breaks. I wrote it to share. Not just with childless women like me, but with every woman who’s ever contemplated motherhood and what it means to her.