Just Keep Swimming A wife trying to keep a positive outlook on male-factor infertility

Hope is starving in my soul; I certainly haven’t given it any crumbs. But still it persists even in spite of myself. Did you know that any time my period is about to start, my boobs get sore, I get a little bit of diarrhea… I still become anxious and wonder – could I be pregnant? True story. I’m not. I know I’m not, and I will never be. But there’s that 1 in a billion trillion chance that one little badass sperm made it to my uterus. I am desperate for that miracle story. I always feel so foolish when my period inevitably starts, and I laugh a little bit at how ridiculous and cruel hope can be.

Every time I look at my sweet boy’s face, I remember that hope is possible. I love him with all my heart, and that love makes me want another child even more. Doggedly, I am persisting on in this fight. It’s the fourth round and I’ve already been knocked out twice. My heart is bloodied, my face tear-streaked, my knees weary with holding myself up, but I have to press on.  Keep fighting. No matter how much this hurts, I know that I’ll always regret not having another child. And if I have to live with that regret, I need to know that we did everything we could and never gave up.

Maybe I wouldn’t feel so woe-is-me if my meeting with the RE had gone better this afternoon. But her reaction to our plan was a little resistant at first and then apologetically unenthusiastic. Bobby’s doctor has moved offices AGAIN, closer to home this time. Which is great because we can use our original RE, but she seemed incredulous and confused at the prospect of doing a live transfer. She raised legitimate concerns about what would happen if the sperm courier got into a car accident on his way here? She didn’t say no, though. She’s going to call Bobby’s urologist and see what we can work out. Her bedside manner kicked in after her initial reaction to the plan and she became much more sympathetic, but I could still tell that our plan really threw her for a loop.

In the meantime, I have to start the usual battery of tests – STI testing, hormone levels, ovarian reserve, ultrasound. Lucky me, my period started yesterday, so she signed me up to get stuck first thing tomorrow morning. Just what I needed – no easing into this cycle, just dive in head first! And of course, the nurse asked if we were planning to have donor sperm on back-up… our big debate. Bobby and I have been majorly struggling with the question of donor sperm. We decided to try one more IVF cycle to give Bobby his best chance at being related to our child, but we haven’t yet agreed on whether our follow up option will be donor sperm or adoption. We agreed that we need to talk to a counselor together to help us come to an agreement and sort out our feelings. We had planned to put that decision off until we knew whether this cycle was a wash, but we decided after today’s meeting that we had better go ahead and find a counselor now.

Privately, this is a good idea. Not so much for the donor sperm question, but because I need a reason to get me through the door of a counselor’s office. I never went to speak to somebody after our last cycle failed, and I’ve been a mess ever since. I’ve been hiding the tumult of feelings on the inside that haven’t ever gone away. Today’s meeting was just enough to send me spilling back into a zombie like state of emotional hibernation – I barely looked at Evan all night, made plain spaghetti for dinner super late because I couldn’t get myself moving, and cried into his hair when I tucked him in for bed. He is both my greatest source of hope and sadness – he simultaneously reminds me of what I have and what I want. I’ve been hiding this from Bobby. I don’t want him to think that I can’t handle this cycle. The only reason I agreed to do this is for him, and I don’t want him to feel guilty for putting me through it again, even though every fiber of my body is screaming “NO I CAN’T BEAR THIS AGAIN.” So I know I need to talk to somebody, or I may not make it through this cycle with my sanity intact.

When I put him to bed tonight, he said something that he says very often: “Mommy, I need you.” I buried my face in his hair and said, “I need you too, baby.” And it’s the truth.