Heartbreak

Infertility is no joke. It’s a roller coaster of emotions, a head full of questions waiting for answers and tons of self doubt and pain. I suppose it’s one of those things you always think about in the back of your mind and wonder how you will react and what you will do but then you shrug it off because it will never happen to you.

Then one day you find out that you actually are 1 out of every 10 couples in the world, you and your husband are struggling with infertility. Yes infertility, the dirty little work shroud by stigma making sufferers feel ashamed, only I don’t feel ashamed nor should anyone else going through this. Instead I feel sad and scared and I want to talk about it.

Eric and I have been married nearly 5 years, together for over 8. We did everything in the typical order, boy meets girl, boy & girl date, fall in love, get engaged, get married, adopt a cat (our first baby), buy a house, have fun together, travel, try new things and then started preparing for babies.

Three years ago we made the decision to stop taking birth control, tired of the hormones pumping through my body and the way it made me feel we started cycle tracking instead deciding that if I got pregnant it would be a happy little accident. Two years later my doctor stated some concerns...apparently most couples no matter how careful they are with cycle tracking end up pregnant. That’s when we stopped tracking to avoid getting pregnant and started tracking to get pregnant. About 6 months later and still no pregnancy my doctor ran some tests and prescribed Metformin, a medication known to make you a “fertile Myrtle”. To say the medication was a nightmare is an understatement, I will spare you the details but I feel like I spent more time in the bathroom than anywhere else.

Eric had done his part by seeing a doctor and visiting a urologist who checked things out and said everything was ok. They did find he has a varicocele however this was dismissed as not being a big deal. Six more months and still no results my doctor told me it was time to see a reproductive endocrinologist (aka fertility specialist). It was definitely not happy news but I think at this point it wasn’t unexpected and we knew something wasn’t quite right, I was convinced it was something on my end and I was consumed with worry and guilt. Every month I paid attention to every little cramp, every time my boobs were a bit sore, every craving and every time I was a day or two late even jokingly saying to the hubby that maybe he knocked me up for real this time, only to be disappointed by a negative test followed by my period. I guess when you want something bad enough you can imagine just about anything. I never let my husband see my worry or disappointment though or at least I don’t think I did. So off we went to the fertility clinic.

They started with the usual tests, lots of blood work followed by an internal ultrasound and exam as well as genetic testing for me and the dreaded semen analysis test for Eric, luckily it was able to be done at home however that didn’t make the trip to the clinic to “deliver his specimen” any less awkward for him. The next day we got a phone call that we never wanted to hear, no sperm was found. They reassured us that this was probably a fluke since it was an at home test and the possibility for contamination and other complications were high so the test had to be redone a few days later, this time in their office. Meanwhile I was scheduled to go in for day 3 hormone testing, where they draw tons and I mean tons of blood on day 3 of your period to check hormone levels and make sure everything is ok, while I was being poked yet again, Eric went in to do semen analysis #2. After my blood draw I was referred to another lab for a glucose intolerance test, which was a 3.5 hour process of blood draws every 30 minutes following a nasty syrupy concoction of a drink with lots of sugar and orange flavoring. While waiting for my final timed blood draw Eric got the gut wrenching phone call that we never wanted to hear.

The second semen analysis came back showing no sperm and he was officially diagnosed with azoospermia which only affects 1% of the entire population, and needed to go back in for several lab tests for his hormones and chromosomal disorders. He has also been referred to a fertility urologist. In an instant our hearts were crushed as we realized there is no chance for us to ever naturally get pregnant.

We will never have a happy little accident and we will never have a big unexpected surprise. Instead this will be a process involving lab coats, monitors, constant tests  and several doctors. Not to mention thousands of dollars as none of this is covered by insurance since it is an “elective procedure”. We will discuss that on another day. From that point on we realized that we were on a very different path and at the beginning of a very difficult journey.

The only thing I can equate the feeling to is the loss of a close loved one, the roller coaster of emotions is overwhelming. You go from happy to sad to angry to ok in 60 seconds. You don’t know how to feel or what to think and you certainly cannot understand why this is happening to you or understand what any of this means or what the next steps are or should be. The realization that you cannot control the one thing that you should be in control of is something unfathomable, especially for someone like me who plans everything to a T. The thought of potentially not being able to have a child with the person I love the most on this earth is horrifying to me. I love this man more than he will ever know and I want to have his children. I have thought of the day I would tell him that I was pregnant over and over in my mind a million times. I’ve wondered if our kids would look more like me or more like him, would they have his cute smile and infectious laugh that I fell in love with. Would they have his piercing brown eyes or my green ones, would they have his serious private personality or be more open and outgoing like me, would we have daughters or sons or one of each? The realization that there is a chance I will never get to look at my baby and my husband and say we did this, look at this beautiful little creature that we made is beyond heartbreaking.

We are still waiting for our latest test results to come in but we do know that we have 3 options at this point and conceiving naturally is not one of them. For us the best case scenario would be for them to find that Eric produces sperm naturally but something is blocking them from making their way out. In which case they could hopefully perform surgery to correct the issue. Another option, if there is no blockage found is finding Eric still produces sperm by doing a testicular biopsy/mapping, apparently this only successful 13% of the time. In which case they would hopefully be able to extract enough sperm through TESE that we could start the process of IVF or ICSI. The worst case scenario, they find he has testicular failure and produces no sperm so that our chances of ever having a biological baby together are completely gone. That would leave us with the hard decision between never having children, adopting, using a sperm donor or doing embryo adoption.

These are things I never thought would be a reality for me and it is 100% terrifying but it is the reality that we are faced with. We will keep moving forward with more tests and exams, I have my next appointment in a few days for a hysterosalpingogram (HSG) test, where they inject dye into my uterus and fallopian tubes to make sure there are no blockages or signs of endometriosis before we are able to proceed with IVF, assuming that is an option. Not quite sure what to expect but it has to be done.

I know a lot of you will wonder why I decided to share this with the world? Something so intimate and private. For one all intimacy and privacy goes out the door the day you start seeing a fertility specialist. You will be poked and prodded in ways you never knew were possible by anyone and everyone both male and female. You become very used to being on display and talking about the most personal details of your life with complete strangers. I can also tell you that your intimate life becomes a lot less appealing as well. Each time you engage in sex you are simply reminded that it is for no purpose anymore. It no longer seems fun, although it is good stress relief, instead it becomes a painful reminder of something that you cannot do followed by another painful reminder each time I get my period.

I certainly do not want sympathy from this, writing it down and putting it out there is more a form of therapy for me and I’m hoping it will help someone else out there going through the same thing. We are all on the journey called life together, some with a bit different and more difficult path than others, but in times of need I find it’s better to be open and honest about things rather than private and guarded. Please stop telling us it will work out in the end, I’m sure it will but right now those aren’t the words we need to hear and please stop asking if we’re ok and when we will have kids. Quite frankly we’re not ok, I feel like a piece of me is lost right now and I don’t know when, if or how we will have kids, we are still trying to sort that out ourselves. Instead please just be there. The feeling of knowing you are not alone speaks volumes and as I stare down at my bruise covered arms, a constant reminder of what we are facing, I need all of the help and strength I can get!