I'm not a Heroine Addict But If I Was I'd Be Good At It

It was an early nondescript weekday morning that I found myself entering an unassuming four story building the purpose of which was to deposit yet another sperm sample for doctors and embryologists to ogle.  Don't ask me why they need so much of my sperm, I can only assume that their sending it all over the country as examples in medical schools of what you don't want to see under a microscope. Posterity.  So, I walk into the office, write my name on the little sheet (even though I was the only one there), the receptionist hands me forms to fill out and turns to the nurses behind her saying, "The sperm freeze is here."  This is my life now.  I no longer have a name.  I'm just "the sperm freeze."

Being known around town for the state of your sperm is an interesting place to exist.  Most people don't know what to say or how to react when they ask how things are going or are unfortunate enough to make some quip asking "when are we going to have a baby" and are met with a stony, if not irritated, response. Being "the sperm freeze" brought it to a whole new level.  The nurses in the back kept repeating it to each other (to spread the news I guess) and I felt a tinge of frustration that was followed by incredulity and eventually ended in subdued acceptance of my new identity.  I guess there are worse things in the world to be known for...  And besides, this first step in the IVF process was but a small penance to pay for the insanely unfair position my partner would be in.

This week on Intervention...

I've been carrying around a fair amount of guilt over all of this.  I'm the one with the problem and she gets to endure all of the poking, prodding and monumental discomfort IVF entails. She's the lucky winner of shiny new nightly injections and a veritable cocktail of pharmaceutical magic.  And I get that this is just the practical piece of how this has to happen, I do, but man if I don't wish I could account for even a small piece of the shit end of this stick.  For now, I'll pay my penance by gearing up for lots of puke and poop clean-ups and attempting to find a way to be able to do those things without adding my own adult-sized vomit to the mix; no small task as my gag reflex is notoriously sensitive.  I still can't eat peas without an immediate involuntary heave.

So anyway, for about two weeks I stuck my partner with needles in order to entice her ovaries to produce as many follicles as humanly possible.  After more monitoring sessions in which I slowly watched her ovaries grow to the size of baseballs it was time for the retrieval, which of course meant more pain and torture for her.  This would require a doctor to stick a needle through the uterus and into the ovaries to suck out the follicles in which reside the eggs.  It all sounded very medieval to me.  They did at least put her under anesthesia for the surgery which probably doesn't mean much when you can't really stand up or walk for a few days afterwards.

All of this is a horribly abbreviated flash forward through a process that is about as satisfying as learning there is a cure to some long-standing grief that requires you to intensify and transform said grief in new and varied ways.  And of course it all ends with more waiting; waiting that can feel so interminably long that you almost forget you've already been trying and failing for years to have a child on your own. So we do the only thing we've been able to do and wait.  There are moments when we dare to hope and moments when we feel like we need to prepare ourselves for the worst but never a moment when we aren't acutely aware how long we've been waiting.  I guess, in a way, it's fitting.  Here we are in the middle of a season of waiting and we wait.  Small consolation at times but at least its helpful to be reminded that we're not the only ones in the world waiting for something.

Because Sometimes the Magic Doesn't Happen In the Bedroom...It Happens In a Lab

There are few things in life that garner praises of perfection. My partner's uterus is one of them.  I was under the impression that I'd been intimately aware of my partner's reproductive system for some time now.  Apparently not so true.  Thus we found ourselves beginning our first fertility treatment.  Part three of the continuing saga in which I become a man required that I first understood a fraction of what it means to be a woman.  It also required that my sperm take devastating hits to its self-esteem because that builds character, or something.

The moment that I realized this was actually happening was when my partner returned home to report on her first "monitoring session."  As she began recounting the experience I was swiftly waylaid by something called an internal ultrasound.  I was under the impression that ultrasounds only happen outside the body and require an instrument that looks something like a defibrillator paddle. Why in the hell would you want to stick something like that inside a person?  I was assured the instrument was a bit more stream-lined.  So, she goes in for this vag-o-gram and apparently passes with flying colors.  And I quote, "Oh Kelly! Oh my! Oh Kelly! You just have the most beautiful uterus! I ought to take a picture of that and frame it to put up on my wall! Textbook perfect!"  The, "Oh Kelly"'s were uttered in a breathy orgasmic tone; apparently the nurse was very enthusiastic, which I guess is a good thing seeing as one problem is more than enough.  All the while my poor deformed sperm were sinking deeper into despair.  They're textbook too, just of a different variety.  Not only are they under-performing, come with at least two tails and few in numbers, but now they had to deal with the shame of entering a perfect uterus in order to do their job.  It wasn't looking good.

In a show of support and solidarity we decided I should probably witness this vag-o-gram for myself, not least because this was really all my fault.  And mind you, I wasn't expecting this to be any kind of a picnic.  I've had doctors' hands up my anus.  I understand uncomfortable.  I was woefully unprepared for what came next. Before things started the nurse pulled out the the vag-o-wand which resembled a miniature mace sans spikes.  Fear level was about a 3.  It took me a minute or two to realize that this thing was going inside my partner's body.  Fear level rose to a 7.  As the actual vag-o-gramming began the fear level spiked and I quickly became concerned that the nurse was damaging the one thing that was healthy and going to allow us to have kids.  That thought was replaced by astonishment at the actual range of motion the nurse was getting out of her inserted vag-o-wand which was again replaced by fear.  So there I sat, in mixed horror and fascination, trying to make out anything other than gray matter on the TV screen set up for our convenience.  By the way, I'm still not convinced anyone can see anything on those things.  There is literally nothing to see.  I'm operating under the assumption that the nurses are just making things up until such time as we manage a successful pregnancy.

So anyway, a number of these "monitoring sessions" and a shot in the stomach later (which I administered whilst groggy sometime around midnight thank you very much), we were back at the office preparing for our first IUI.  IUI stands for Intrauterine Insemination, which, obviously.  Essentially what happens is they turkey baster the sperm past the cervix (which is where most sperm go to die) and right into the uterus.  The hope is that the sperm won't need to do much to successfully find and penetrate the egg that will be happily falling down the ole' Fallopian tube any minute.  In addition to this express train into the uterus, they put the sperm through a wash which is basically a glorified tilt-a-whirl ride with chemicals that leaves only the best and brightest behind.  I had a bad feeling when the nurse came in and informed us we would need to sign an extra consent as my sperm numbers were lower than is usually considered satisfactory for an IUI round.  I, of course, was cursing my partner's perfect uterus and Nurse Uteran-Orgasm for dropping the guilt hammer on my poorly performing seed.

About two weeks later we got our results: negative.  We were kind of expecting  it though hoping for the best.  After the IUI we had looked up statistics on how effective this was supposed to be and essentially halved it because of the added consent form we signed which basically told us this is not going to be successful. The one positive that came out of it was that our insurance accepted the doctor's recommendations to move on to IVF which I guess we can thank my bogus sperm for seeing as they turned in an absolutely abysmal performance.  So now we're gearing up for an all together different and exponentially more intense experience trying to get pregnant; one in which my partner will be transformed into a walking pharmacy and we brace for the possibility of wildly outrageous hormonal reactions.  I'm sure I'll be displaying couvade-like symptoms through all of this as well so it could also result in the end of all living things on Earth.  For now, excuse me as I go and shove a needle in her stomach.  Practice makes perfect.

The Trying and the Wanting and the Waiting

I was fortunate to have been raised by parents who, for all of their flaws and inconsistencies, couldn't have done a better job managing the struggles of life and raising three children.  My dad probably worked something like 100 hours a week and still managed to read my brother and I bedtime stories.  My mother, who was left with the enormous task of taming two rambunctious boys 14 months apart, somehow maintained her sanity while showering us with love and raising our much younger sister.  It was a tall order and us kids tended to not make it easy.  As is the cycle of life, I never really appreciated or understood what my parents did for us growing up until leaving home and beginning the process of becoming an adult.  And it's really only now, after nearly two years of trying to get pregnant and failing, that I'm beginning to understand a tiny bit of what it might mean to be a parent.

A curious thing happened to my memory over the long course of this endeavor to get pregnant.  I can still remember the excitement of those first few weeks and months after making the decision to try for a baby.  I can recall our optimism and the late night talks wondering what our future child might be.  It's all still there somewhere but there came a point when the optimism and expectation was replaced with something else.  At first it was confusion and frustration.  We were reassured by friends, family, and doctors that sometimes it takes time and so, despite the frustration, we soldiered on.  Eventually those emotions were compounded by miscommunications and arguments in which my partner and I struggled to express our own conflicted and painful feelings as those first few months turned into a year.  Soon after that year mark (and probably sometimes before then as well) the optimism was replaced with successful and unsuccessful attempts just to remain present in the month to month ordeal of tracking ovulation cycles, beginning the process of figuring out what could be wrong, and hoping beyond reason that damn blue line would show up.  The anticipation and expectation had been sapped from the process, replaced with a pall of unknown reasons and the specter of looming problems.  At times, it's difficult to even recall what the initial optimism and expectation felt like.  I still have the memories of it, I still recall those moments but it's like watching them through an old dusty window as if the lack of emotional connection leaves them in this strange detached place in my self.

When I was in seventh grade I began to experience a number of emotions that I neither knew how to identify nor manage.  I couldn't shake an overwhelming feeling of wanting to be alone.  I began spending most of my days cooped up in my room dwelling on god know's what and feeling desperately lonely.  It wasn't until my parents noticed some of the more obvious symptoms of my depression that I found myself at therapy with a man I had never met asking me questions I had never answered before.  I never did ask my parents what that experience was like for them, who they might have talked to or what they learned from it all and I think that had to do with the fact that I was acutely aware, perhaps for the first time, of the importance of my parent's presence in my life.

It's odd the places your mind takes you.  In the midst of this never-ending path to create a life, I've been unable to shake this memory of my parent's faces when I left my therapist's office for the last time.  There wasn't anything particularly special about that moment except that, in my mind, I have this wonderfully poignant and vivid image of my parents without any manufactured happiness attempting to mask the situation. They were concerned for sure (perhaps still a bit scared) but what I remember feeling from their faces was the warmth of their presence.  They were there.  They had been there at the beginning, they were there that day leaving the therapist's office for the last time and they've been there every day since then.  And the only thing I can think of now, in this moment, is that I think I can do that.  I think I can be good at that.

The first part of this experience ended with some pretty raw emotions drifting in a place somewhere between apathy and exhaustion which is neither a helpful or healthy state of mind for the having of children.  Waking up mornings and finding that your living with a person that is completely foreign to you is a scary experience for two people that have vowed to live their lives together.  You're forced to confront things never before imagined and ask questions that you may not want to hear answers to.  And you know what, it doesn't always end up okay.  Sometimes there isn't some magnificent plan (not least because if this is all part of a plan, then I have to interject that this is a horrifically shitty plan).  I'm thankful that we never had to traverse the road of ending our partnership together.  We've managed to come out of this in a good place and we at least have some answers and direction as to where we go from here.

Ghostbusters and the Quest to Become a Man

Men have a long history of infatuation with violence, overactive sex drives and an overwhelming need to spread their progeny.  We enjoy guns and UFC tournaments, have sex twice a day and measure our worth in life by the number of children we're able to sire.  Interestingly (probably only for my own self-awareness) none of this is true for me which, in turn, most likely means I'm not a man.  I'm fine with that, not least because the culture that we live in has constructed ideals of what it means to be a man (and a woman) that are completely idiotic and utterly lacking in any sort of realistic world in which actual people exist.  It probably helps that I don't really buy into the whole machismo thing anyway.  I bring all of this up by way of explaining the long and winding journey my partner and I have been on in order to get pregnant and have our own little bundle of poop and joy.  Part one of the Quest to Become a Man is probably more depressing than I'm willing to hash out currently so let's skip ahead to Part two: Finding out your sperm are stupid.

Towards the end of 2010 I was experiencing some minor pain in my side that was intermittent and barely noticeable.  The only reason I took note was because I have a history with a kidney stone that pretty much derailed an entire summer of my life.  Soon after that I had blood in my urine so off to the doctor I went.  The doc seemed completely unconcerned by the small amount of pain as it truly was a small amount of pain.  Anyone with any first-hand knowledge of kidney stones can tell you "small amount of pain" is not a phrase one would ever use during the process of having a kidney stone.  Instead the doc thought it was most likely some kind of prostate infection (It was, in fact, a kidney stone that I passed December 26, 2010 whilst in the middle of a cross-country trip to visit family, sorry guys!).  An entirely unexpected and unpleasant anal probe later we found ourselves chatting about the prostate and the possible problems an infection can cause.  I asked whether or not that can mess with two people's ability to get pregnant (we had already been trying for a year at this point, which is the magic number for most doctors and insurance people to start figuring out if anything is wrong).  And so began my quest.

The doc's instructions of collecting a sample of sperm were thorough and basically stressed that it is a time sensitive and procedurally sensitive process.  Get it to the hospital in 30 minutes and for god's sake don't miss.   We're talking about your standard pissing cup they hand out at the hospital mind you so right away you are questioning how it's even possible to fill this thing and if you don't, what is wrong with you.  It's essentially set up to make you feel like a failure even after you have successfully completed the procedure and delivered your sperm on time.  The best part is walking through the hospital with a clear plastic bag in which a clear plastic bottle with a sample of your sperm resides.  I wasn't shaking any hands or giving out high-fives.  My mission was simple: keep my eyes forward, walk fast and make it to the lab with as little fanfare as possible.  Thankfully this first time was relatively painless.  When the doc called a week or two later with the results he was sounding appropriately concerned and delivered the news that my analysis came back with some issues and he was referring me to a specialist.  Apparently, along with some lower than normal numbers my sperm are fond of swimming in circles and doing a whole lot of nothing.  Which is to say, they are about as stupid as thinking this whole business really is a quest to become a man.

Round two with the urologist for talking about my sperm came with another surprising anal probe (apparently even mentioning the fact that a previous doctor thought there was something wrong with my prostate, however incorrect, was an open invitation for him to make sure) and a request from the doc that I give a second sample for him so he can have some comparative data to talk about when next we meet.  Round two sperm collection did not go as smoothly as round one, of course, because that would require me to exist in an alternate universe in which I was not required to experience the more embarrassing things in life.

After a fair amount of runaround by the hospital as to where I was supposed to be delivering my sperm after collection I enjoyed the pleasure of being able to deliver said sperm in the company of others.  The nurse was with a few other people, one of which was an impressionable young girl; a situation in which my superbly honed instincts told me I would surely be waiting until this child was done getting blood drawn and out of sight before the nurse took care of my sperm.  Nope.  Instead she brought me into the next "room" (read: behind a mobile partition) and proceeded to ask me in a less than discrete manner a number of questions that made it more than obvious what I was there for.  My favorite was something along the lines of, "Did you collect this sample through masturbation without the use of any lubricants, spermicides, or condoms and were you able to collect all of your ejaculate in this vial."  She emphasized the words, masturbation, spermicides and ejaculate which puzzled me greatly but there I was.  After completing the questionnaire and signing the paper (because, ya know, signatures make everything official and more professional) I exited the "room" to realize that it wasn't just the young girl getting blood drawn.  Every seat was filled and every eye was on me.  I felt like I should say something or apologize or something.  Instead I just flashed an assuredly creepy looking smile and exited to go take care of some paperwork.  It was then I noticed the unfortunate shirt choice of the day bearing this wonderful logo:

To a lesser observer, one might immediately think, "Yes! Ghostbusters!" Unfortunately, at that moment, it was just a confused looking sperm with a no sign over it.  Thus concluded Part two of my quest in which the moral of the story is two-fold: everything they told you in high school about getting pregnant being easy is false and males, never mention your prostate while talking to your doctor lest s/he use it as an excuse to shove her/his hand unceremoniously up your rectum.