The one where we found out (we were infertile)

So our follow up was 2 1/2 weeks ago.  Emotions have been all over the place, it already feels like it’s been forever since then.  After the appointment, I just started searching for other people’s stories as much as I could.  I would read through the archives to follow their journeys.  There are so many strong women out there who have had all different outcomes, and that are still in the thick of it.  I appreciate being able to hear from them.  I feel like it gives me a sense of what could be to come for us, even though everybody’s story is different.

At our consult with our RE, Dr.V asked us a bunch of questions about our lifestyle and told us what we would be doing in the next few weeks for testing.  We told her we were concerned about DH’s sperm count.  (Our previous SA with my OBGYN seemed to show his count was way low, but we did it at a different hospital than my Dr worked with so he wasn’t positive he was reading their sparse report correctly.  I know that sounds bad for my Dr, but I saw the report-there was practically no info on it.  And he knew we’d be getting another at an RE’s office, so…).  He had an undescended testicle when he was a baby and it was fixed, surgically, before the age of 2.  She said if it was low, that was likely why.  But she repeated what we all know… it only takes one!

As it turned out, this appointment was on CD2, and the bloodwork they start with you is on CD3, so I was able to schedule all that for the next morning.  DH set up a SA appointment.  He was not happy that the office near us only does it twice a month and the soonest available appointment was too far out to be helpful.  He was forced to schedule it at one of their other offices about 45 mins away (where they do all procedures and stuff too, so that’s where I’ll be going for all the IVF stuff).  He spent the next week and a half telling me he pictured the room where he’d have to give his ‘sample’ as one with an old lazy boy chair, covered in c*m stains (am I the only one that hates that word??), and a tv with a VCR and stack of pornos.  I assured him it would be like any other Dr’s office exam room, but probably with a comfortable chair and a magazine rack and maybe a wifi password, b/c can’t you just get all that you might want to look at on your phone anyway?  It turned out they did have a tv and dvd’s.  Apparently they’re with the times at our RE’s offices…

On CD10, I had to go back for an internal ultrasound (never had one of those before!  I now know that all the IF ladies lovingly refer to that as the ‘dildo-cam’ haha) and more bloodwork.  They counted the follicles and measured them and all that jazz.  Bloodwork was a lot less this time.

So the morning of our follow-up, we get ready for work and head to the appointment.  We had it scheduled for 8am.  In retrospect, it would’ve been nice to have this late in the day so we could go home together after.  It kind of made for a shitty day at work… Ok, let’s face it: I cried on and off throughout the day and avoided everyone as much as possible in my 4 person office.  Anyway, Dr. V let us know that our bloodwork all came back fine, my follicles and whatever else they were looking for up there were fine, but DH’s SA did show only about 6 million sperm.  She mentioned motility and morphology, one was almost normal and the other was way low, at this point I don’t even remember which one was the issue.  She wants to ‘aggressively pursue IVF’ with ICSI (for those of you who may be new to this, that’s where they actually inject the sperm into the egg rather than throwing them both in the petri dish and hoping they fertilize).  Made perfect sense since the sperm are an issue.  I think we handled this news pretty good.  At the office…

The next few days were complete crap.  Even though we have hope this will work, and no reason (yet) to think that it won’t, it’s kind of devastating to have a Dr confirm that you most likely won’t be able to conceive a baby with your husband the normal way that ‘everybody else’ gets to.  Not that there’s anything sexy or romantic about scheduling sex around ovulation…

(On the bright side of all the ‘trying’, I’m no longer bothered when they ask for a urine sample at the Dr’s office.  I used to HATE that and do everything I could to avoid it.  I’ve now been peeing on ovulation sticks  for over a year and it no longer phases me.)

Turns out the timing of this news came right at the end of my cycle when I’m most emotional.  Any frustration feels extra, so of course I was more of a mess than I think I would’ve been if we had found out any other week.  My mom asked in an email at work the next day when our appointment was and I could barely get through a couple sentences telling her it was actually yesterday and that we were looking at IVF.  A couple days after the appointment we happened to be going to my dad’s for a little get together.  We told my dad, stepmom, and 2 of my sisters (the other lives far away).  Crying all around.  By the 3rd time telling all this, to my out-of-state sister on the phone the next morning, I was able to do it with less emotion.  It was getting easier.

We’re going to be vague with them about stuff.  We don’t want them knowing the day we’re doing stuff b/c we want to be able to announce it like any other normal couple in any cutesy ridiculous way we feel like.  That’s why I need you.  I need to be able to say what’s going on, as it’s going on.  You’re my outlet so I don’t feel like I’m keeping a secret.