Trips to the fertility clinic are never fun. There is a lot of poking and prodding if you are a woman, and if you are a man there is a lot of awkwardness because everyone know what you are doing when you are giving your “sample”, plus the whole process is very clinical and sterile feeling. All of the couples are in different states as you sit there in the waiting room stealing glances at one another. Some couples are beaming and full of hope, because they just know that this is the cycle that is going to make it happen, while other couples are nervous about the whole procedure and fidget with their phones waiting for the doctors to call them in, then there are the couples like L Bird and I, the seasoned vets. They have been through numerous cycles and don’t have a lot to show for it, so some are very reserved, and some are just downright depressed as they walk out after an insemination with little to no hope of it actually working. L Bird and I are very fortunate that we did get lucky enough to have A Bird, so we are actually one up on quite a few couples, but it still doesn’t help to ease the want of having a second child and giving A Bird a sibling to face the world with.
This most recent trip to the fertility center was especially tough because I am at the center of why we are not getting pregnant. Now I am going to delve a little into a very personal area for me and you may not want all of the details or play by play, so if that’s the case stop reading here.
OK, now if you are still reading this, I am writing this because maybe something I write here will resonate with someone else struggling with male infertility and they will know that they are not alone. Some history to start, L Bird and I were referred to a fertility center around ‘05/’06 because we had been trying for over a year with no results. I got referred to a urologist who is great and happens to be a woman. It was a little odd having a female urologist, because she is poking, prodding, squeezing and holding you in a lot of areas that anyone other than your wife shouldn’t be touching but that’s a whole other post. She very quickly identified me as having a varicocele which was leading to low sperm count and low motility and set up surgery for me. I went through the surgery to repair it and then a few months of waiting to heal before having a semen analysis to see if my counts had improved. My counts went up, but I was still abnormal (shocker, right?) in having lower sperm counts but we were still good candidates for fertility treatments. L Bird and I dutifully went through the treatments with hormones that sent L Bird on an emotional roller coaster and both of our stress levels through the roof. We went through 4 cycles of our allotted 6 lifetime tries (my insurance only covered 6) like they were nothing and we weren’t getting any closer. At that time L Bird had just started a new job which wasn’t helping her stress level at all, so we decided to take a break for a couple of months until things were a little more settled. Then through God’s grace he blessed us that next month with a miracle, A Bird. She showed up without any other intervention other than God’s.
Fast forward to today, L Bird and I have been trying to have another child. Before we started really actively trying hard, I went to the urologist and requested a semen analysis to see where I was at. I have to say that I wasn’t entirely shocked to hear that my counts had dropped again. That was 9 months ago. Since then the urologist identified that I had low testosterone and a vitamin D deficiency, she started me on a three month hormone/vitamin regimen and my counts came way up to where I was close to the lower levels of normal. L Bird and I were ecstatic, and actually hopeful for our first few cycles.
Then reality set in. Every month my count has dropped, or I should say plummeted. It takes roughly 10 million sperm to saturate the path to the egg. Once you have 10 million healthy, motile sperm it is up to the egg to grant entry and thus fertilization. It doesn’t matter whether you have 10 million or 50 million the odds are the same because you are at saturation level. Then everything below 10 million lowers your percentages of fertilization and becoming pregnant.
The first two months everything looked good, but then everything went into the tank. L Bird and I went back to the fertility doctor because we are down to our last insurance covered IUI try. The doctor looked at my results and basically told us we had slim to no chance and we shouldn’t waste our last try. That really took the wind out of our sails and was really a punch in the gut to me. I feel incredibly guilty that it is my fault that we are not getting pregnant. It hurts in so many ways. It stings my pride, because any man can make a baby, right? Then I throw a pity party and rack it up to just something else to add to the list that is wrong with me. Or I start to think that I’m being punished by God for all of my sins, and that adds to my guilt. It is just a painful roller coaster for me as I deal with these things because no one really has the answers, and no one can give me a magic pill that will fix me and make me more fertile.
But there was light at the end of the tunnel, a dim, single bulb hanging and flickering in the wind, but still a light. He laid out two options, the first being go back to the urologist and see if she could get me to repeat my success with more hormone therapy or switch to IVF which is not covered by insurance and is roughly $12,000 per try. IVF isn’t in our budget at the moment, so I am heading back to the urologist to get her input and see if she thinks I am treatable. I am really hoping that she can repeat some treatment and help me again, if not our only other option is me banking my sperm at a cryogenic bank for a year or two and saving up the money (I know we could take out a loan, but I think that for me "financing" a baby is just wrong) for one round of IVF, which brings its own set of emotional struggles.
So that’s it. That’s where we are and why sometimes we aren’t so happy or nice to be around. But here’s to cherishing our time with our own little miracle, A Bird and praying to God for another one.
This most recent trip to the fertility center was especially tough because I am at the center of why we are not getting pregnant. Now I am going to delve a little into a very personal area for me and you may not want all of the details or play by play, so if that’s the case stop reading here.
OK, now if you are still reading this, I am writing this because maybe something I write here will resonate with someone else struggling with male infertility and they will know that they are not alone. Some history to start, L Bird and I were referred to a fertility center around ‘05/’06 because we had been trying for over a year with no results. I got referred to a urologist who is great and happens to be a woman. It was a little odd having a female urologist, because she is poking, prodding, squeezing and holding you in a lot of areas that anyone other than your wife shouldn’t be touching but that’s a whole other post. She very quickly identified me as having a varicocele which was leading to low sperm count and low motility and set up surgery for me. I went through the surgery to repair it and then a few months of waiting to heal before having a semen analysis to see if my counts had improved. My counts went up, but I was still abnormal (shocker, right?) in having lower sperm counts but we were still good candidates for fertility treatments. L Bird and I dutifully went through the treatments with hormones that sent L Bird on an emotional roller coaster and both of our stress levels through the roof. We went through 4 cycles of our allotted 6 lifetime tries (my insurance only covered 6) like they were nothing and we weren’t getting any closer. At that time L Bird had just started a new job which wasn’t helping her stress level at all, so we decided to take a break for a couple of months until things were a little more settled. Then through God’s grace he blessed us that next month with a miracle, A Bird. She showed up without any other intervention other than God’s.
Fast forward to today, L Bird and I have been trying to have another child. Before we started really actively trying hard, I went to the urologist and requested a semen analysis to see where I was at. I have to say that I wasn’t entirely shocked to hear that my counts had dropped again. That was 9 months ago. Since then the urologist identified that I had low testosterone and a vitamin D deficiency, she started me on a three month hormone/vitamin regimen and my counts came way up to where I was close to the lower levels of normal. L Bird and I were ecstatic, and actually hopeful for our first few cycles.
Then reality set in. Every month my count has dropped, or I should say plummeted. It takes roughly 10 million sperm to saturate the path to the egg. Once you have 10 million healthy, motile sperm it is up to the egg to grant entry and thus fertilization. It doesn’t matter whether you have 10 million or 50 million the odds are the same because you are at saturation level. Then everything below 10 million lowers your percentages of fertilization and becoming pregnant.
The first two months everything looked good, but then everything went into the tank. L Bird and I went back to the fertility doctor because we are down to our last insurance covered IUI try. The doctor looked at my results and basically told us we had slim to no chance and we shouldn’t waste our last try. That really took the wind out of our sails and was really a punch in the gut to me. I feel incredibly guilty that it is my fault that we are not getting pregnant. It hurts in so many ways. It stings my pride, because any man can make a baby, right? Then I throw a pity party and rack it up to just something else to add to the list that is wrong with me. Or I start to think that I’m being punished by God for all of my sins, and that adds to my guilt. It is just a painful roller coaster for me as I deal with these things because no one really has the answers, and no one can give me a magic pill that will fix me and make me more fertile.
But there was light at the end of the tunnel, a dim, single bulb hanging and flickering in the wind, but still a light. He laid out two options, the first being go back to the urologist and see if she could get me to repeat my success with more hormone therapy or switch to IVF which is not covered by insurance and is roughly $12,000 per try. IVF isn’t in our budget at the moment, so I am heading back to the urologist to get her input and see if she thinks I am treatable. I am really hoping that she can repeat some treatment and help me again, if not our only other option is me banking my sperm at a cryogenic bank for a year or two and saving up the money (I know we could take out a loan, but I think that for me "financing" a baby is just wrong) for one round of IVF, which brings its own set of emotional struggles.
So that’s it. That’s where we are and why sometimes we aren’t so happy or nice to be around. But here’s to cherishing our time with our own little miracle, A Bird and praying to God for another one.
No comments:
Post a Comment