Tough Day June 29, 2004
I’ve had a rough day today. I finally just broke down and cried. I hadn’t really allowed myself to mourn the fact that my hubby and I will never have children “the old fashioned way.” Up until his surgery, there was always still that possibility. I cried a little on the day of the surgery, but I really hadn’t had a good cry. Well, all of that pent up sadness had to come out sooner or later, and the fact that I am totally PMSing just helped things along.
I guess my frustrations don’t really stem from the fact that the whole sex to procreate thing is out of the question. It’s just that we have to jump through so many hoops. The waiting for the appointments, the never ending tests, the referrals, the requests for medical records, it’s just all such a pain in the ass. Not to mention the fact that we’re going to have to fork out $13-15K when we still have multiple tens of thousands of student loans to pay off (think 2 undergrad degrees and a very expensive private law school degree).
Plus there’s the looming question, “What if we go through all of that to do IVF and it doesn’t work?” It’s a distinct possibility. Everyone wants it to work on the first try, but the reality is that it doesn’t for the majority of people. I think it’s important to have backup plans. Last night my husband and I discussed our backup plans in case IVF #1 fails. Up until a little over a week ago, IVF was our backup plan. Now it’s THE plan. We’ve decided that if our first cycle fails, we will do a FET if we are lucky enough to have any embryos frozen. If not, we will decide whether or not to do another fresh cycle based on the results of cycle #1. Who knows, maybe the sperm that they retrieved during the surgery will be duds. Maybe I’ll have egg issues. There’s just know way to know until we try.
If we decide not to continue with IVF (after however many cycles) we will move on to adoption. I do not view adoption as a “last ditch effort.” I think adoption is wonderful. I don’t even have a problem with the whole lack of biological connection thing. I really don’t. I’m actually kind of scared for my offspring to inherit some of my genetics. I just feel that I need to try IVF first. Adoption will still be an option for us in 5, or even 10 years (not that I plan on waiting that long). My eggs will not be in as great shape in even 1 year. Age is on my side right now, and I’ll take any advantage I can get, no matter how small that may be.
So, I guess it helps some to plan ahead (as much as possible). Some days are just harder than others to look towards those plans in a positive light.
Thank You
I’ve added links to several of the blogs I read on a regular basis to my blog. (Thanks, honey, for the great html lesson last night.) While these women probably have no idea that I’m out here, they have been such an inspiration to me. The past 6 months (not to mention the past 2.5 years) have been really tough, and it helps to know that there are other people out there experiencing similar things. Plus, these gals can write. I’m just so amazed how they can express, so eloquently, what I’m feeling. Thanks, blogging gals, for helping me to feel less alone. I’m sure I’ll be adding more links as time passes. There really are a lot of us infertile gals out there in blogland.
Want Gmail? June 28, 2004
I doubt anyone actually reads my blog, but you never know. If anyone sees this and wants an invite to gmail, just email me. I have 6 extra invites just sitting around gathering dust. To email me, click on “view my complete profile.” There will be a link on the left side of my profile page. Or if that’s too much trouble, just leave a comment with your email address included.
Google Found Me
I’ve been blogging for over two months, and google finally found me. From time to time I’ve been copying exact lines from my blog entries into google with no results. Today I learned that I exist out in cyberland. Cool. I can even find my blog without including my blog name in the search. I feel validated. (I know, how pathetic am I?)
To Blog or Not to Blog
That is indeed the question. I’m not referring to this blog. I think getting all my crap out there is somewhat therapeutic for me. I’ve been toying with the idea of starting a second blog to keep our families up to date on the whole IVF thing. I’m not really sure if that’s a good idea or not.
On one hand, it would be nice not to have to update several people, all at different times, over the phone. I know they’re gonna want to know how things are going, etc. Plus, I think it would be good for our families to know exactly what we’re going through. There’s so much to learn about IVF, and I think this would be a good way for our families to be informed. It’s not like they’re all going to go buy books on the topic or spend hours researching it on the net. (Well, maybe my mother-in-law will, but that’s it.)
On the other hand, do I really want to give these people that much information? They’re my family, I realize, but in general, I’m a pretty private person. No one in either of our families knew about our struggle with infertility until my husband was about to have his first surgery. I’m not really concerned with them “getting it” or having any “moral concerns” about it. They’re all highly intelligent, scientifically minded people. I’m also not concerned about it being a hot topic among other people. So far, they’ve all been good about “keeping it among the family,” like we’ve requested.
So, I don’t really know what my hang up is. Am I worried that they’re going to learn too much about me? Am I worried that we’re going to go through all of that and it not work, and then it will all be immortalized forever? (ok, yes on that one.) I just don’t know. I do know that if we have a negative at the end of our cycle, it will be easier to tell our families on a blog versus over the phone. I guess the other alternative is to just give them a very, very general timeline for things, so immediate updates will be unnecessary. Oh, decisions, decisions.
On the Road to IVF June 25, 2004
As promised, I will now elaborate on my attempts to get started in the IVF world. My hubby and I had already discussed our options if his surgery was not successful. We’ve decided to move on to IVF w/ICSI, as this is our only option to have biological children together.
So, this week I’ve been trying to get a consultation appointment scheduled. After doing a little more research on the two IVF clinics that my husband’s doctor recommended, (I had already looked at the various places to do IVF in Houston) I called the first one. This is also the facility that is storing the sperm retrieved from the surgery, so I thought it was logical to start with them. Well, I got the total run around treatment. I spoke to 4 different people, in as many phone calls, and got no where. In order to get the simplest questions answered, like cost, tests required, etc., I was told I would have to schedule an appointment to speak to a nurse over the phone. This, of course, was not a free service.
Well, I got frustrated with that place and decided to give the other place a call. This was the doctor that my hubby’s doctor had highly recommended. I had not considered this practice before due to the fact that it’s not one of the “biggies” in town, and it is not as convenient as some of the others. After looking at their numbers, I realized that they do plenty of cycles per year, and their success rates are actually higher than the first place I called. Plus, the whole IVF process is pretty inconvenient when you think about it, so what’s an extra 20 minute drive anyway. When I called this second clinic, I was immediately impressed. The person I spoke with was so helpful and courteous. She let me know what tests my husband and I would each need that we hadn’t already had. She let me know that the Dr. would be out of town for 3 weeks beginning July 5th and offered to schedule a consult appointment on June 30th if I could get a referral from my OBGYN before then.
I called my OBGYN’s office to try to get a referral, and that whole experience just stressed me out. I just needed to find out if it was possible to get a referral in time, but I ended up speaking to 3 different people in 2 days with no real answer to my question. My husband and I discussed it, and we decided it wasn’t worth the stress to try to get a referral and a copy of both of our medical records in a weeks time. So, I called the IVF clinic back and rescheduled my consult appt for July 28th. That will give us both time to get the required blood tests done and get the whole referral thing figured out. When I called back to reschedule, I was again impressed. I was treated so nicely, and the lady offered to put me on their email mailing list and send me a new patient information packet. We won’t know for sure if this is the place for us until after we meet the doctor, but so far I have a good feeling.
The Gory Details June 24, 2004
I guess I should actually get to posting about the events of the last few days. My hubby had his surgery on Monday. We arrived at the hospital at 8:30 am for his 10:30 surgery. We sat in the waiting room for an hour before anyone got to us. We then paid our copay and got to go to pre-op. They did all the standard stuff: IV, vitals, consult with the anesthesiologist, etc. Right around 10:30, they wheeled him off to the OR.
The doctor had told me that someone would bring out the extracted sperm around noon for me to take over to the other facility for cryopreservation. Well, noon came, 12:30 came, 1:00 came, and I was getting very nervous. Finally at 1:30 my husband’s doctor came out to talk to me. He let me know that they were far from done, but he wanted to give my an update. Here’s what I jotted down after we finished speaking:
1:30 pm My husband’s doctor just came out to give me an update. He found a blockage low in the vas deferens and a secondary blockage in the epididymis. Not good news. He said that they’re going to be able to retrieve some good sperm and that it will be ready for me to transport in about 45 minutes. After the doctor finished explaining the technical stuff, he asked me, “Are you ok?” I automatically answered “yes” but, in all honesty, I don’t really know. I’m sitting here in a hospital waiting room doing my best to hold back tears as some cute little toddler waddles past my seat. So I guess IVF here we come. Can’t say I’m all that excited about that thought.
I then went to the ladies room and tried to compose myself, and then returned to sit and wait for the sperm. It should have been ready around 2:15, but I sat nervously waiting for it until about 3:45. I was supposed to grab something to eat while I was out on this errand, but since I was still waiting, I didn’t have a chance to eat. That made things even worse. Here’s what I jotted down at 3:30:
3:30 pm I’m the only one left in the waiting room. There’s no sign of the sperm that was supposed to be ready at 2:15 for me to transport. I’m getting nervous. If that’s our only shot at having biological children, I sure hope someone hasn’t dropped the ball, so to speak. We already know that today isn’t going to be ending in the best case scenario. I just hope it won’t be ending in one of the worst.
One of the nurses finally brought out the sample for me to bring to the other facility for cryopreservation around 3:45. Here’s what I had to say when I returned to the hospital:
4:15 pm I’ve returned from dropping off the sperm. The other facility was close to the hospital, so it didn’t take too long. The people in the lab were expecting me, and everything went smoothly. When I asked if I had to pay then, they told me that everything was going to go through my husband’s doctor’s office. It should be interesting to see how much we end up paying for it.
At about 4:45 my hubby’s doctor came out to talk to me again. He let me know that they had finished the surgery, and it was unsuccessful. One side had blockages in both the vas deferens and epidiymus. The other side was open, but it appeared that that testicle was not producing sperm. They did a biopsy to find out what was going on with that testicle. They attempted to take the vas deferens from the side that wasn’t producing sperm and cross it over to the other side to bypass the blockages, but the blockages were too low to make that plan feasible. He let me know that he did retrieve good quality sperm from the epididymis of the productive side. I asked him his opinion of the various IVF clinics in town. He let me know of a couple of them that he recommended.
Just after I had finished speaking with the doctor, a nurse came out and let me know that I could go back to the recovery room. When I walked in there, it was obvious that my husband had only been out of surgery for a short time. He was barely conscious, but it was nice just to be able to sit with him. My first concern through all of this was to make sure that he came through ok. After sitting there for a while, my hubby started to wake up a little. The first coherent thing that came out of his mouth was, “Did it work?” It broke my heart. How could I tell him that he had gone through all of that and it didn’t work? I whispered to him that we would talk about it when he was feeling better and then sat down and cried. After he had woken up more, I did end up telling him that the surgery was unsuccessful. That was so hard to do.
We stayed at the hospital for quite a while until he was physically able to come home. He’s been recovering pretty well since then, although, as he puts it in his blog entry, “My groin looks like someone used it for a piñata and then stitched it back together as a baseball. Fun.” I’m glad his sense of humor is still in tact, and I’m doing my best to take care of him while he recovers.
This entry has turned out to be quite long, so I’ll save the saga about trying to move on to the whole IVF thing for another time. The only way to make it through this in one piece is to take it one day at a time, I guess.
Suckage June 22, 2004
My hubby’s surgery was not successful. He’s recovery slowly at home. I’ll elaborate more later, but I’m just not at the point where I can get all my feelings out there yet. I’m thankful that my husband is ok. We’ll figure out the rest later.
Take Me Out to the Ballgame June 20, 2004
Yesterday my husband and I went to an Astros game. We had a good time even though they lost. I was excited about the prospect of seeing Roger Clemens pitch, but I was not impressed. Apparently, he had a really off night and ended up getting pulled in the fifth inning.
After the game, Coke was giving out free cans of their new product, C2. It was better than I expected. I don’t drink carbonated beverages very often. They don’t really agree with me. I do, however, sneak in a couple of my favorites, Coke and ginger ale, every great once in a while. I’m not a fan of diet sodas, though, so I was interested to see if I would like the new C2. It wasn’t bad. It was basically a weaker version of Classic Coke. No chemically taste, like diet, but not really full-flavored like regular Coke. I guess for someone wanting a lower calorie soda, but not diet tasting, who likes something mild, this would be perfect
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Tomorrow is my hubby’s surgery. Apparently, when he called to confirm on Friday, per the pre-op instructions, the same lady that has frustrated us to no end in the past let him know that she had scheduled his surgery in the wrong facility. The hospital we’re using has multiple buildings. She managed to get it switched to the correct place, so now his surgery is at 10:30am instead of 10am. It’s going to be a nerve wracking day waiting for tomorrow to arrive. There’s so much riding on the outcome tomorrow. I guess only time will tell where we go from here.
My Poor Kitty June 17, 2004
Salvador, my kitty pictured here at the foot of the bed, had a rough day yesterday. Yesterday afternoon I heard this god awful noise coming from the kitties’ bathroom. I ran in there, and poor Salvador was in the litter box and was obviously in pain. I knew we needed to make a trip to the vet. I called my hubby, who being the wonderful papa that he is, agreed to come home early from work so we could take Salvy in together.
In January, we had a similar situation. He had blood in his urine and was grooming excessively. That time we had to go to the emergency vet clinic due to the fact that it occurred on a Sunday. This time we took him to our normal vet. Apparently Salvador has Feline Urologic Syndrome, also known as Feline Idiopathic Lower Urinary Tract Disease. There are many theories out there about the cause and treatment, but no one really knows for sure. The vet used the same course of treatment that the other vet had used in January, a shot of an antiinflammatory drug and a weeks course of oral antibiotics. They did an exam and an ultrasound to make sure there was no blockage, and there wasn’t. Last time they did a urinalysis (his bladder was empty this time) and found no crystals or anything else abnormal. It looks like this is just something we’re going to have to deal with every now and then.
Some people think this condition can be caused, at least partially, by stress. I really hope my kitty isn’t stressed out. He’s such a laid back and happy guy that it doesn’t seem possible, but I guess there’s no real way to know. I guess the visit by my husband’s family a couple of weeks ago could have done it this time around, but who knows. The good thing is that he’s doing better today. I hate to see any of my babies in pain.
Arachnophobia June 16, 2004
Last night, after my hubby had gotten home from work, we headed toward the bed for some “extra curricular activities.” We have to take advantage of that kind of time now, because after my husband’s surgery on Monday we will not be allowed to have sex for at least three weeks. Anyway, I was about to lie down, but right there in the middle of the bed was this bigish spider. I screamed and scared the crap out of my husband. There was also a lot of profanity involved. Luckily my husband came to the rescue and killed it. I’m not a fan of bugs, especially spiders. The fact that there was one in my bed sent me over the edge. Needless to say, the love making session had to be postponed. I had to take some tylenol PM and have my hubby check and double check the bed before I could even sleep last night. Fun times.
Why is it that I can say “fuck” over and over when freaking out about a spider but yet have trouble getting out words when referring to the actual act?
Shouldn’t I Be Breathing Easier Now? June 15, 2004
Ok. I admit it. I’ve gone from ignoring my blog to not being able to shut up on it. I’m pretty sure it’s due to the large amount of nervous energy that is currently bottled up inside me. A lot of things that were causing me stress in this post have been resolved, at least partially, but I’m not feeling that much better.
I called the administrator lady that works in my husband’s doctor’s office this afternoon to follow up on getting the whole sperm cryopreservation thing figured out. She had me hold to speak to the actual doctor. This was a relief. We generally have much better success getting things communicated when skipping the middleman (or middlelady as the case may be). Anyway, I let the doctor know that the facility doing the cryopreservation needed an order from his office and a referral if he was going to order any tests. He said he would call the facility directly and get things set up. A little while later the administrator lady called me back to let me know things were all set to go.
My husband contacted our leasing office about our lease renewal. As a result, they are preparing a new lease that will be ready for us to sign by Saturday.
I emailed the ebay seller of the phones that I have yet to receive, because I was getting nervous after reading his new negative feedbacks. He emailed me back shortly thereafter to let me know that the phones had not shipped yet due to an oversight on his part. He apologized and promised to send them out first thing today priority mail.
My little brush with angular cheilitis has an end in sight. I think. It’s getting better thanks to some good old hydrocortisone applications. Thanks google for pointing me to a site that suggested this treatment. I don’t think I would have thought to use it otherwise.
Well, as you can see things are working out, at least for the time being. So why am I still sitting here curled up in a little ball totally stressing out? I’m sure it has something to do with the whole surgery thing. This one day (next Monday) will determine our whole baby-making future. I’m terrified. First and foremost, I want my wonderful hubby to be ok. Surgery is always a scary proposition. Secondly, I just want to know where we go from here. It’s just so stressful not knowing what the next step is. Will the surgery work, and we’ll actually be able to get to start “trying” again? Will the doctor be unable to complete the reconstruction due to a secondary obstruction, and we’ll have to go straight to IVF? Will the surgery only seemingly be a success, and we’ll have to turn to IVF after “trying” without success for 6-12 months? God, I wish I knew. The best I’ve come up with is just to hold my hubby tight and try to make it until Monday.
Infertility Etiquette
My relationship with my in-laws got off to a rocky start, to say the least. In the past few years, however, things have gotten better. We’ve only told a few people about the whole infertility thing, and my in-laws are among them. We’ve also told my parents, my two brothers and their wives, and my husband’s brother. We didn’t tell them until we found out that my hubby was going to have to have surgery. I don’t really regret telling them. This is a huge part of our lives right now, so they should know.
We have had a few comments that get under my skin though. Not anything too horrifying, but things that hit me the wrong way. The night we told my parents, they were babysitting their great nephews (my cousin’s children) ages 1.5 and 3. The boys were running around the house, and my dad said to me, “Are you sure you want one of those?” Uh, yeah. Do you think we would be willing to go through all this crap if we didn’t? Another time we were discussing medical reimbursement plans with my brother (who is an accountant) since the open enrollment period was approaching at my husband’s firm. We were debating whether or not to contribute since we weren’t sure whether or not we would have to do IVF within the next year. My brother said, “Well if the surgery doesn’t work, can’t you just wait a year to do IVF so you can use the medical reimbursement plan during the next plan year?” I replied that we weren’t willing to wait a day longer than we had to. I feel like all we’ve done is wait.
Back to the in-laws. Yesterday I received an email from my mother-in-law that included a link to an article about an IVF clinic in CA that gives their patients a free third cycle if the first two fail. I realize that like me, my mother-in-law likes to research things. That’s a good thing. However, I feel like she should be doing it to inform herself not to pass along things to me. When we first decided to tell our families, I found some infertility etiquette articles on the internet. I decided not to pass them out to our families, but now I kinda wish I had. Here are a couple of excerpts from an article at resolve.org concerning the dos and don’ts of support:
Don’t give medical advice or doctor referrals without being asked or hearing the couple say they are looking for new information or referrals.
Don’t assume that new medical breakthroughs you read about in the paper will solve the couple’s problems. The breakthrough announced by the news media may be irrelevant and if it is relevant, chances are the couple has seen the article and their medical team is knowledgeable about it.
Those are the ones I was reminded of when I received the email from my mother-in-law. I know she intends well, as do the other members of our families. They just don’t know how sensitive I can be, I guess. Now the question becomes, do I say anything or just ignore it? I’ve decided for now just to not reply to the email. I don’t like doing that generally, but I don’t want to encourage her to send me other similar emails. Maybe I’m being too sensitive, but who’s to say? I don’t think that others who have not experienced infertility have a right to judge.
That’s What I Call Customer Service June 14, 2004
I’ve never really been a fan of our cable company. Our apartment complex, as well as several other complexes in our city, use a smaller cable company as opposed to the mammoth company that most Houstonians use. We haven’t really been thrilled with the channel selection they offer, and we’ve had trouble with our cable modem service quite a few times.
Recently they changed our channel line up slightly. While they made me happy by adding HGTV, they upset my hubby by removing OLN from our package right before the start of the Tour de France. Once I started watching HGTV I noticed that they were inserting commercials during actual programming in addition to the normal commercial breaks. This frustrated me to no end. I’d be watching a show and then all of a sudden a commercial would come on, and I’d miss a couple minutes right in the middle of the show.
Well, it finally bugged me enough that I decided to submit a complaint on our cable company’s website. I knew better than to call and talk to a “customer service representative.” I have since received 3 reply emails in response to my complaint: one that appears to be the standard reply in response to their online form, one from the manager of the ad sales department in Houston, and one from the owner of the company that is contracted by the cable company to do local ad insertions. Impressive. They thanked me for bringing it to their attention. The last email from the subcontractor guy said that since HGTV is a new channel to them, they are having some difficulties with the commercials. He even gave me his personal email and phone #. Now, I have no idea if they’ll actually fix the problem, but it makes me happy that they even spent a few minutes placating me with responses.
I Hate Red Tape
I will be so glad when I don’t have to deal with all the crap that goes along with my husband’s surgery. I called the facility that will be doing the cryopreservation of the sperm retrieved at the time of the surgery to verify that they had received the order from my husband’s doctor. They had not. I called the lady that handles all of the scheduling for my husband’s doctor (the same woman that caused me so much stress in scheduling the surgery in the first place) and she said that the order hadn’t been faxed yet. Yeah, I knew that much. She said to call her back tomorrow when the Dr. would be in the office. She is absolutely no help at all.
I then talked to the secretary of the surgeon that will the assisting my husband’s doctor, since I hadn’t received a referral/approval thing from our insurance for that doctor. She gave me info that totally contradicted what the letter from the insurance said. I really don’t know what to do about that situation.
I also tried to call the leasing office of our apartment complex, because our lease is expiring at the end of the month. Their line picked up, but all I heard was two people talking to each other. Then I was disconnected. I have since delegated that task to my hubby. I’m just too frustrated to try again.
I’m also stressing about my most recent ebay purchase. I bought some new 5.8 gHz phones about a week and a half ago. At the time I bought them, the seller had excellent feedback, but since then he has receive two negative feedbacks from people that have purchased the same type of item. One person claims to not have received their purchase after 3 months. The other claims that their item wasn’t shipped until 11 days after payment was made and that the seller threatened them with bad feedback if they complained. I’m really careful about who I buy from on ebay, especially when buying something expensive. I realize that buyers are protected from fraud through credit card companies and through paypal, but it still makes me nervous. I just want my phones. I want to have one less thing to worry about.
I have another source of stress right now. Apparently I have angular cheilitis. For the past couple of weeks I’ve had this crack in the corner of my mouth. It hurts a lot especially when eating, laughing, or just opening my mouth in general. Last night I googled “cracked lip corner” and found out what it was. I’m really hoping to get away with not having to go to the doctor, but who knows. Just one more thing, you know.
Well, I’ve just reread this post, and I sure am grumpy. I guess it’s my prerogative to bitch and complain on my blog, but I’ve noticed I’ve been doing a lot of that lately. I wish I could just cheer up, but I don’t think it’s going to happen, at least not anytime soon. I’m a worrier by nature, so right now I’m feeling overwhelmed. I really hope that in a week most of this will be settled. My hubby will be having his surgery next Monday, so hopefully all that goes along with that will be resolved. On the other hand, depending on the results of the surgery we could have a whole other set of things to worry about. Ok. I just need to stop now and hope for the best.
Side note: I’ve always thought prerogative was spelled perogative. Apparently I’m not the only one.
Dream a Little Dream June 13, 2004
I have weird dreams. Last night I dreamt that we had to do IVF. This has been on my mind quite a bit lately, because that is our next step if my husband’s surgery is not successful. However, this was not a typical IVF cycle. The only details I remember from the dream are that instead of how they typically transfer embryos in an IVF cycle, my Dr. had me put on a patch (like the heat patches you use for menstrual cramps) that contained my embryos. I guess they were supposed to burrow through my skin into my uterus to implant. Interesting.
On another note, my mother called me last night practically insisting that she come into town to be there during my husband’s surgery. I had already told her that it was not necessary for her to make the trip. I guess she didn’t get the polite suggestion earlier, so last night I think I repeated the word “no” a million times. I guess for some people the prospect of sitting by themselves in a hospital for 8+ hours while their spouse is in surgery is not ideal. I, however, would much rather be alone. My mom would just stress me out. This is something that I feel my husband and I need to do on our own. Hopefully my mom gets that, but most likely she just got upset because I don’t “need” her. I just think all of this is hard enough to deal with without having to worry about dealing with my mom.
Anti Blog June 8, 2004
I’ve been pretty anti blog the last few days as evidenced by my lack of posting. I haven’t really seen the point. Even now, I’m having trouble getting words out. I’m at the point where I really don’t want to talk about the whole infertility thing, but I can’t stop thinking about it 24-7. It rules my life. I wish it didn’t, but that’s just how it’s got to be for now.
I’m just so mad at “it” whatever “it” is. Can you be mad at infertility? I guess I’m just pissed that this is my (our) lot in life. I know things could be so much worse. I really do get that, but this is what’s overwhelming my view of the world right now. I think I’m passed the whole “why me” way of thinking. I know that things have never been easy for us. We’ve always had to work really hard for the important things. Sometimes I rationalize that by thinking, “That’s the price we have to pay for having such a wonderful love-filled marriage.” Most people deal with some type of hardship at least once in their lives, some are lucky and just glide through life, but some people just have to fight and fight and fight. Will it be worth it if we end up being parents after going through all this crap? HELL YES.
Even though I’ve been pushing so hard to get my husband’s surgery scheduled as soon as possible, on some level I’m actually dreading it. I just don’t want to learn that they’ve discovered that they couldn’t complete the reconstruction once they’ve gotten in there. I don’t want my husband to have to go through all of that only to learn that there’s nothing they can do. I know I should be sitting here thinking positive thoughts, but in reality, I’m bracing myself for that letdown.
If the doctors are unable to complete the reconstruction, we’ll move straight to IVF. I guess that would be preferable to the reconstruction being successful but not resulting in sperm production. In that case we wouldn’t know for several (6-12) months, and it would delay our jump into IVF.
Best case scenario is of course a successful surgery followed by sperm presence followed by pregnancy. Our doctor said that the last patient he performed the same surgery on had his wife pregnant within 6 months. I don’t know what the exact odds of this happening are, but I know that they are very fortunate.
On a different note, we got our car back from the shop on Friday. It’s nice to have our own car back. It’s all pretty and dent free now. At least that whole situation worked out well.
Damn Coupon June 3, 2004
I ran over to the grocery store to pick up a few snacks (ie. I needed chocolate.) Well, you know those store coupons that print out automatically based on what you buy? Apparently the customer in front of me had one of those print out while he was checking out, but for some reason the cashier didn’t give it to him. She gave it to me instead. I thought, cool, a free coupon until I took a closer look. It was for baby formula. Just what I needed, another reminder that I’m childless.
I’m really trying not to let these type of things get to me lately. I just can’t seem to shake the gut reaction I get when something like this happens. Sometimes it makes me sad, but today, and quite often, it just pisses me off.
On the premise that I’m trying to “be a bigger person” or whatever, I actually stopped on TLC’s A Baby Story today while flipping channels. I haven’t watched this show since the infertility demon came to live at our house. I used to enjoy it, but that’s when I had hope that I would get pregnant like the rest of the world does. You know, have sex at the right time for a few months in a row, and bam- your pregnant. Ha! Anyway, today I was going to try and watch it. That resolve lasted about 2 minutes until the pregnant woman featured on the show started talking about how she freaked out (not in a good way) when she found out she was pregnant. You know, the extremely fertile type person who gets pregnant “before they’re ready.” I just couldn’t handle it and switched channels. I guess that pissed off reaction isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
You’ve Got Some ‘Splaining To Do June 2, 2004
I just realized that in quite a few of my recent posts I’ve referred to “my husband’s next surgery” without actually explaining what that surgery entails. Here’s an explanation:
In rare cases, obstruction of the male reproductive tract occurs in the inguinal portion of the vas deferens. Obstruction in this location is usually caused by an injury to the vas during inguinal hernia repair and should be considered in azoospermic men who have a history of previous inguinal surgery. Some of these injuries can be corrected by vasovasostomy performed in the inguinal canal, provided that the ends of the vas can be located and approximated without tension. Sperm retrieval and cryopreservation may be performed at the time of microsurgical reconstruction in order to avoid a second procedure in the event that the micro-surgical reconstruction does not reverse a patient’s azoospermia.
It’s basically a more complicated version of a vasectomy reversal. The hernia surgery that my husband had when he was 2 apparently gave him an inadvertent vasectomy. There’s no way to know until they get in as to whether they’ll actually be able to attempt the reconstruction. There could be a secondary blockage that they cannot get around. Even if they complete the surgery, it may or may not result in active sperm production. That’s why they are going to retrieve sperm during the surgery that will be frozen should we need to move on to IVF. I guess that clears everything up (or just makes things more confusing.)
Just Us
My in-laws are on a plane back to CA right now. It’s nice to have our apartment back to ourselves. Their visit was good, but you reach a point where you cross the line into relative overload. That’s one of the things I’ve noticed since we’ve moved closer to my parents. We’re now a 2.5 hour drive away instead of an all day plane trip away. Now we can just go visit them for 1-2 days at a time, but more frequently than before. When we have to pay for airfare, I feel like we should spend a lot of time at our destination. However, I think that once we’ve passed the 4 day mark, we’re pushing the limit. I like spending time with my family and my husband’s, but it’s so much easier to handle in small doses.
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