Great News!!! (No, not what you think, but close!)

So we got some very good news on Wednesday.  We met with an OB; not my regular one but a nurse practitioner in my OB's office. We were afraid she would tell us that we have no reason to even try IUI, that we may as well just go to IVF and ICSI.  But, instead, she did just the opposite. 

She said that yes, it's not great that Dan's morphology is low, yes it can make it harder. But that was where the negative stopped.

She started talking about the positives in our case.

My age for one. I am younger than most women undergoing fertility treatment in their office. All my tests have come back normal. My cycle is great.

Then she pointed out that the rest of Dan's numbers looked really good, some above normal. And that she has seen a lot worse in other patient's semen analysis.

So, we have a lot of positive factors on our side!  I had actually just never thought of that, oddly enough. I guess we only ever focus on the negative, on the obstacles. Now, I'm trying to remember the  positives on our sides.

The nurse practitioner also said that she wouldn't worry too much about me taking Clomid right now because I have no ovulatory disfunction. So we are going to try three cycles of IUI without Clomid and then re-evaluate and maybe do three more with Clomid. So we can do up to six cycles of IUI!!!

She said that sometimes the sperm get "lost" in the vaginal canal and can't find their way into the cervix. Morphology can affect the way sperm swims so our problem may just be that they can't find the egg and even when they do, they no longer have the energy to penetrate the egg.  IUI takes out the problem because it deposits the sperm into the uterus so the sperm don't have far to swim and the process of preparing the sperm makes it so that there's a higher concentration deposited and they have fewer abnormalities.  

In case you're wondering how the procedure goes, I'll describe it. If you don't want to know, then skip this paragraph.   I'll take an ovulation predictor test starting at a certain point in my cycle. When I get an LH surge I call the OB office and they schedule me the next day for my IUI. Dan will then call the fertility clinic two floors down from the OB office and schedule to give his sample two hours before my appointment. We then wait for them to process it, they give it to us in a little test tube, wrapped in foil, in a styrofoam cup and then in a paper bag, we take the elevator up two floors and they deposit it in my uterus. I then lay down for 20 minutes afterwards and then go home.  Then I wait around for two weeks to see if it worked.

It's simple and really not invasive at all.  It does take some of the intimacy out of baby making since it's done in a dr's office, but at least Dan gets to be there. 

We're very hopeful; maybe that's putting it too lightly.  After the appointment we were both ecstatic. I started to cry in the Dr's office because I was so releived!   For the first time in months we both have hope and we're letting ourselves once again imagine what  it would be like to have a biological child.  I could be pregnant soon!!!  That's awesome!

Whose hair and eyes?

I'm feeling under the weather today, it's mainly from a cold that's trying to make my life miserable.  But also I was thinking about a conversation Dan and I had last night. We were talking, just briefly, about what our children would look like. Whose hair would the girl have?  The boy? Whose eyes?  It was sweet and dreamy, both of us having a moment where our problems and fears of conceiving just were not there.  This morning I thought about it though, and I started to cry.  I want to see what our child will look like, sound like, be like. I want to meet that child, hold it, laugh with it, cry with it, help it to it's dreams and desires.   I want to see what we could make together. Will I see it?

I'm trying so very hard to not lose hope. The voice in my mind tells me, reassures me that hope is not dead, it's not lost; just delayed.  "Hope delayed makes the heart sick." according to the Bible. And my heart has felt sick for a long time.

Our counselor said that before we adopt we would need to readjust what our picture of a family looks like.  And I realize today that I don't know if I'll ever stop wanting to have our own; even if we decide to adopt.  I would love it if, for whatever reason, we adopted and then had a biological child.  I think just one from Dan and I would make me happy, just once to see what we could make together. 

Hope is not lost, that is what my heart and my head keep telling me. Don't lose hope, don't give in.  Oh God I'm trying!  I don't want to, but I must admit that I'm having trouble fighting despair and giving up.    

But how do people give this up!  How does someone lay that dream down and pick up the next one? How do you stop wanting it, the thing that is so simple, so hardwired into us?  I don't want to stop, and yet I do. I want to stop hurting; I know I've said that so many times before but there are days I feel that I just can't stop feeling nearly crushed by this, feeling like I'll never stop hurting and crying.

It is the most simple and selfless of things to want a child, isn't it?  We would be good parents, I know that in my soul.  But this is not the road we pictured when we started.  And I have a feeling before it is all through, it will be something we had never imagined.  The how of getting to be parents will be different...maybe.  

If you are reading this and don't have these problems, thank God that you have been able to conceive your child through the intimacy of making love to your spouse, rather than in the coldness of an exam room.  I suppose I envy you.  

And yet, to keep from sounding completely bitter...We'll get there, however it happens.  If I have to go through IUI to have our baby well then so be it, other women have done far more and harder things to do it!  And I won't complain.  I need to focus on that, on this next step, on the IUI, not on things far down the road.  I can't do that.  We're not there yet.

When a Cuisinart makes you angry, have you lost your mind?

We just got back from seeing our counselor again and it's really becoming clear to me that I am meant to write a book about all this; with Dan more than likely. There isn't a book from both the husband and wife about all this, I think it would be amazing. And I'm not just talking about the clinical data and how to break it down, but really about the emotions, the moments that we look back on and either cringe, cry or laugh about.  For instance, this week I was to make dinner for Dan and two of his friends that were coming over and then run out and meet Amy for dinner; letting the guys be guys without a woman around.  Well, I was running a little behind and thought "I know, I'll use our food processor to cut the veggies for the soup, it'll be quicker." well, it so happens that our cuisinart is tempermental and I couldn't get the damn thing to work. I ended up crying to Dan on the phone because time was running out and I couldn't get it to start, I was crying and angry with myself, saying that I was stupid and a worthless wife; all things that I don't really believe by the way.  It felt like I was standing a little outside myself thinking "What are you doing? You don't believe that! It's just a stupid Cuisinart for God's sake! Chill!" but I couldn't chill, I couldn't hardly step back and have compassion for myself, something the counselor says I need to do a lot more. I felt like I was losing my mind, especially since earlier that day I had broken down in tears in the car just from seeing a picture of a baby on the side of the bus.  Sometimes, through this I really do feel like I'm going crazy, like I'm a passenger on the train of my emotions and I have no control over them. It's scary in some ways because I used to consider myself pretty in control of these things.  Now, however, I feel out of control. And to hear this morning that going on Clomid for IUI's will likely make it worse was not comforting. It was startling actually because the Dr. didn't say anything about emotional side effects only the physical ones.

The counselor talked about having a plan before I went on Clomid; if I decide to, so that we as a couple can handle the emotional issues that can happen during the treatment. It made me realize that far too many couples don't see counseling as a necessary part of their fertility work up, and it should be essential, just as essential as finding the right RE or right fertility treatment option. I know that many Fertility clinics have counselors on staff for patients going through IVF, but I seriously think that couples should start way before that.  Getting a plan in place, getting some of the other emotional and mental struggles in hand before getting pumped full of synthetic hormones seems to be heading off lots of issues at the pass.

I asked Dan what he thought having compassion for myself meant, and he said it was accepting that this is a hard time for me, that it's going to cause me to react in irrational ways (hence yelling at the cuisinart), that I need to forgive myself, accept myself as imperfect. Welcome to the struggle I've had my whole life!  It's gotten better, but I have to tell you I hold no one to the standard of perfection I hold myself to. It's brutal and unfair and I have worked my whole life to give myself a break. maybe God is using this to do just that, to take me a little further down that road. 

It was a relief to hear the Counselor say that this was a brutally difficult time, that sometimes you feel like dying from this, that sometimes you feel...well just pick an overwhelming emotion and it fits.  It was comforting because there have been times I've felt like I was being too sad, too emotional, that I was going overboard or that I just needed to buck up and get over it. And don't get me wrong, she's not saying that I should dwell there, but instead what I heard was a validation of what I'm going through. It felt so good!

Dan's experience with the ultrasound this week made me realize that while women are more used to having invasive examinations done on them that might make some of the exams and procedures for fertility slightly more manageable, men have no resource to draw from.  It made me realize the level of compassion I need to have for him as we go through this.  

In regard to the Urologist appointment, I was frustrated because he didn't come out and say "You're wasting time with IUI" or "Yeah, go ahead and try it, though your chances are decreased by these numbers." I felt like he gave us very little useful information and that was so frustrating! I was just wanting someone to say "Do this" or "Don't waste your time" and no one has said that; I'm not sure anyone will be so forward, this is a very personal decision.  But a little leadership from our Dr would have been nice. Now I need to schedule a consult with my OB. We decided that we need to try IUI, if Dr. Callahan says it's worth a shot and not  complete waste of time and money.  We need to see if it would work.  As far as IVF and ICSI goes...Well, I feel like I need to ask more questions, do more research on it because I don't want to give up too easily. What if that is our only chance for a biological child?

But Dan is against it at this point, and I get that. I'm not sure, from what I've read, that I could go through it. From all I've read and heard it's the hardest treatment out there, but with the highest chances of conception.   That, to me, is a hard trade off.

There is a part of me, small and with a quiet, soft voice that believes we will have a biological child, that it won't be with fancy treatments or what have you.  I have a feeling, however illogical it may be, that it will happen after we've adopted. There is a part of me that leans heavily on the side of adoption. But I don't want to give to that yet, I even feel guilty thinking about it because I feel like I'm not giving IUI a fighting chance. I feel like I need to believe or I'll cause it to not work; as much as that probably isn't true, I believe your mind does play a part. I need someone to give me hope with IUI I guess, more than a shrug and a "Well, you could try it."  I want to believe. Have I talked myself out of it?  Maybe.  

I told Dan that there is a strong part of me that just wants to come to a place of acceptance, of not hurting anymore and people who come to adoption seem to have done that. It seems like it doesn't hurt as bad, that they accept and are happy to move on. I want that. I'm so tired of hurting, I'm so tired of crying and feeling this despair, of wishing I had never dreamed of having a baby.  I'm so very tired.

Letting Go: Part 2

I can't say it any better than my husband; but I'll add my spin to it!  

It's what we are both struggling with right now.  I say it a little differently and that is that it's letting go of the expected outcome, what I have expected it to look like along the way and at the end. I trust God to do it because He's got something that is the best thing for me; it's not easy to let go, believe me!  The struggle inside of me is of epic proportions.  But I know it's right. The how to is hard. How does someone do this without giving up?  I think that all that is required of us is to be willing, even when our willingness and our fear of letting it happen are duking it out inside of us.  Just be willing, just say "yes" even if it's through gritted teeth and God does the rest; like He says in the Bible "gently and deeply".

This is where we are at with this; both baby and acting/making movies. It may not look like how we thought it would, the road to it may look different than we thought it would. But it will be no less wonderful, precious and exciting as we go there and when we get there.

I want to love the life I life every day, love the blessings, revel in what I do have, not what I don't. I can't do this, can't make it happen myself. I can be willing, however, to be transformed, I can make the choice to see the wonderful in my day and let God shape the rest in me.  It's strange and I will likely go back and forth about this before the end of this journey, but I couldn't help seeing it as a gift last night; what we are going through. One we don't really want to unwrap, one we wish many a time we hadn't gotten.  But God loves me so much to change me like this, to make me stronger; to me that's amazing. Now don't get me wrong, there have been and likely will be times when I will say "Screw Character! Get me out of here!"  But I think what Dan and I are learning will eventually win out.

The Glass Wall

I think that moving and settling into our new house effectively distracted me from being babyless.  A few days ago it was becoming apparent that pressing all this down and choosing to ignore it in favor of celebrating our new home was only going to work so long.  I hadn't really realized it but I had started to focus on adoption more heavily. Reading more about it, thinking more about it...I've started to feel like my faith is behind this glass wall, I can see it, I can hear it, but I can't touch it, can't feel it.  And it has been very disconcerting, to say the least.  I want to keep believing, but it's been beyond hard.  This week I started to pray and ask that God would help me to keep believing, give me the strength I need to do it because I felt too weak to do it on my own. It's started to come back. I've made the choice not to think about adoption yet. Dan feels that a lot is going to have to happen before we get there, and we'll have a grieving process before we are able to actually begin that progress. I agree with him.  

We also just don't know what the urologist will say. We are going to ask for another semen analysis just in case it was a fluke.  I like having some knowledge before going into a dr's appointment, and the more I read the more I feel a little discouraged, the more I feel like I have to fight to keep believing.  It's not impossible. In fact some men with zero morphology have gotten their wives pregnant; Dan's not that bad!  But it could be a problem that would not be solved by the less expensive and less invasive procedure of IUI.  The problem with low morphology is that the sperm can't penetrate the egg. There's a test that can be performed to test that, and if we pass the test then we can likely try IUI and there's a good chance it could be successful. Again, this is just what I've read, this isnt' from the Urologist.  He may have a completely different thing to say or suggest. I am expecting the Urologist to suggest IVF and ICSI, which from what I've read is the best option for people with low morphology.  I've started reading more about it, just to prepare myself. I'm not 100% sure I want to do that. Not only is it upwards of between $6,000 and %10,000 PER TREATMENT, but the drugs associated with it on my end are brutal on the body.   

I'm reading a great book right now called "The infertility survival handbook: everything you never thought you'd need to know."  by Elizabeth Swire Falker.   I swear the author is my internal twin. Her sense of humor and the way she phrases things is almost exactly how I would say it.  I'm on the chapter in her book about IVF and she also had a bad view of the procedure. I haven't gotten too far into this chapter, but I'm hopeful it will help me at least feel better if we have to consider it.  This is the only book I've found that the emotional impact of infertility on the man is discussed; mostly because her husband has low morphology too; like in the 0% category.  She also has a chapter on adoption, but I chose to skip that one for now. 

We start couples fertility counseling tomorrow.  I'm actually looking forward to that.