Infertility: The Good, The Bad, and The Unnecessary

I’m thinking October is going to be my month! I love early fall weather, we have general conference (LDS church’s semi-annual worldwide broadcast), 3 of my 4 favorite musicians are releasing much anticipated new albums (Amos Lee – Oct 8, Avett Brothers – Oct 15, Brett Dennen – Oct 22), the Red Sox are back in the playoffs, and the NBA begins again on the 29^th.  (*For some reason I have been waiting more anxiously for this season than any I can remember in past years – probably due to there being like 7 or 8  contenders to take down Lebron & Co, which is more than the usual 2 or 3 contenders most seasons. And I am not even counting the up-and-coming Warriors, but of course I am counting my Phoenix Suns . . . just kidding.) However, I am hoping all this good fortune means one additional joyous thing happens to me this October. I find out my wife is pregnant.

Many of you likely read my wife’s post from last week about our struggles with infertility and learned that we will be doing In Vitro Fertilization in a few days. We are very excited, and very nervous. Today we are fasting for and we are always praying for a successful procedure, but this focus on IVF has also got me reflecting on the journey of the past 2 ½ years to this point. Many blogs have been written by women about infertility, but rarely has a man voiced his struggles. So I hope I can express myself sincerely and can adequately convey what many husbands feel during a couple’s battle to have kids. My wife put a warning in her post about the length of it, and if you thought her post was long, you probably won’t want to read this; I struggle with concision. (I’m also sorry if I get too specific with infertility issues, but being in the medical field, I don’t find these things awkward to talk about.)

The Good

I don’t want to be all tears and gloom with my post today, because as I look back on our ongoing trial, I see many good things that have become of it. God often blesses us through our trials, and I didn’t quite fully comprehend this until recently. This understanding of God and knowledge that he never abandons us has been a blessing in itself. I’ve also learned that most trials are not given as punishment, prayers are answered, the Holy Ghost is often leading us in small decisions that we don’t realize until later, we cannot judge others and must be sensitive to their possible internal struggles, patience is a virtue, and we should live like we’ve already been blessed because all blessings do come. But the biggest thing I have learned is what my wife mentioned in her post: God’s ways are not our ways, He is in control, and His timing is His timing. This has been most humbling to me, and don’t we all need to be humbled sometimes?

We have been blessed by more than just knowledge over the past 2 plus years. I know that our church teaches that finances should not govern your decision to have children, and it obviously didn’t for us, but financially, we are loads more ready now to have a baby than we would have been 1 or 2 years ago. Angela has been able to continue working to help support us, especially while I was a student. Insurance-wise, we have also been blessed financially. Thanks to Mr. Obama, we decided to put Angela back on her parents’ insurance after her benefits ended with her teaching job. Then, I was given an offer with and without benefits at my new job and took the no benefits/ higher pay package because “it just felt right”. After seeing what her dad’s insurance has covered for infertility and knowing what others often pay for these procedures, we have experienced nothing short of a miracle with her staying on the parents’ insurance. As I mentioned earlier, the spirit often leads us in decisions we don’t realize at the time. This was also evident in us ending up in Reno. Until about a year ago, Reno would have never even come up in places we’d likely live after graduation. But some things led us here and specifically, to the apartment complex we chose to live in. It just so happened, a few weeks into attending church in our new ward boundaries, we discovered a highly successful and well-respected fertility specialist was a member of our ward. I was prompted to talk to him and a few weeks later, we were in his office devising a plan to get us pregnant. The Lord works in mysterious ways!

In addition to finances, I feel we have grown extremely close as a “kidless” married couple, and we are more patient with each other, more spiritually mature, more physically healthy (well, I guess everything besides our fertility health), and ready to be good parents now. I’ve also heard some parents complain about or belittle their kids, and I believe going through all this to start having them will hopefully help me understand they are God’s gift to us and appreciate them even in their times of terror. One last blessing has been the outpouring of love we have received from those that we have told our struggles to. From family to friends to co-workers to fellow church members, we are truly grateful for the support.

The Bad

Unfortunately, there have been some bad, or difficult, things to accompany the good.  For many couples with infertility issues, it is often just the man or just the woman with a problem needing to be fixed. But for us, we seemed to have gotten a perfect storm of male and female factors affecting our chances to conceive. I think, especially for the husband, there are different feelings that accompany either scenario – the wife or his self as the source of infertility – and I have been privileged to experience both along the way.

As I’m sure you know, men like to fix problems. That’s what we do. So as we began realizing the long road it was going to be for us and focused on Angela’s issues thinking that I was “normal”, I wanted to fix our problems. But the more and more I tried to, the more and more I realized my lack of control over the whole thing. I felt so helpless as Angela would cry and feel horrible every time her period came, as we would set goals to better ourselves spiritually and still no baby came, and as my healthy, granola wife struggled with the one health issue at the top of her “never want to have this issue” list. She told me growing up and throughout college for her, her greatest fear was to not be able to have her own kids someday. And as she faced her greatest fear, I felt there was nothing I could do to save her from it.

However, after moving to Portland about a year ago, we began to investigate my possible problems because the results of a semen analysis reported to us as “reasonably normal” turned out to be not so normal when you actually looked at them. We did another SA in February of this year and the results were even worse than before – much worse. (And real quickly for those that have never experienced it, getting a semen sample is a kind of a trial in itself, especially for a good Mormon boy who has never masturbated in his life.) These results took a few days for them to call me about, and like my own father, I was tragically optimistic that they could only be better than before – heck, I was healthier now. Then the call came on my way to my clinical rotation downtown, the tone in the nurses voice already told me they weren’t going to be better. And then I heard what no man ever wants to hear: motile sperm count = ZERO, or in other words, sterility. I had to pull over and gather myself. I cried with actual tears down my cheeks, for the first time about something that made me sad in as long as I could remember. I called Angela and we cried together. Oh yeah, and then I had to go to 8 hours of work with patients and be happy. It was easily one of the 5 worst days of my life. It was like I lost my manhood, learned there was something seriously wrong with me, and gave my wife the worst let down of our marriage all with just one phone call. But we gathered ourselves and met with a male infertility specialist that gave us some hope (which are rare by the way, but another blessing is there was one right across the street from my work in Portland.)  To end this part of the story, I have done some things that have helped give my sperm some life – at least enough to do IVF with ICSI. Thank goodness for that!

The Unnecessary

Along with the letdowns of our own personal issues, there was another bad that was probably unnecessary for me to put myself through. One of the hardest things about our 2 ½ years wanting desperately to have a baby was having to deal with others comments or questions. I always thought I was thick-skinned, but somehow infertility turned me into a softy and made me ultra sensitive. Just like when I was discouraged about dating and despised all the questions about marriage, I began noticing people would ask what I often considered as insensitive questions such as, “When you gonna have kids?”, “You guys have been married a while, you thought about kids?”, or “Your wife pregnant yet?”. Not that these are really insensitive questions, but to “Mr. Extra-sensitive Infertility man”, they were. I also began noticing how much family and raising children and dealing with kids was a topic in all church meetings. It’s difficult hearing about a family-centered gospel when you can’t seem to start a family. Maybe the worst was noticing other parents complain about their kids or having others say, “Wait as long as you can to have kids; they’ll drive you crazy and take away your freedom” or “You guys are lucky not to have any kids”. The whole time I would be thinking painfully, “Then please take away my luck and give me crazy, give me oppression.”  

So was my offense justified? Were my feelings necessary? Probably not. For 2 reasons. 

1. We were very private with this matter over the whole process. Not even our families knew most of these details. Recently as we have finally opened up, we have been amazed at the flood of sincere comments and support. People are actually very sensitive when they actually know your trial. That’s the kicker. I often have that inner feeling of slight awkwardness for someone else as they bare their soul about a trial in a fast and testimony meeting. But they’re likely doing a good thing. We are supposed to mourn with those that mourn and bear each other’s burdens, but how can we do it if we don’t know what burdens they have or don’t even know they’re mourning? I could have solved part of my issues by overcoming my pride and telling more people that we were struggling, especially when the topic came up.  

2. Although the first principle is true, people could still do a better job of being sensitive to other’s issues. I know we can’t know everyone’s trials, but many have the spirit of discernment. Try to use it and think before you speak. (Don’t worry, I am plenty guilty of putting my foot in my mouth and not great at this either). With family preached so much, those not successfully finding a spouse, those with a struggling marriage, or those not being able to produce offspring might be sensitive to such topics. Maybe we could use more caution in bringing up personal questions or doling out advice. I know I would really get ruffled with comments like, “Here’s the key to getting pregnant, [Insert some off the wall anecdotal advice].” I have a sister who’s 25, still single, and the best catch I know; I’m sure she hates hearing, “Here’s what you gotta do to get a husband.” Seriously, do we not remember how tricky dating is, especially in the shrunken technology world we live in today? Whatever people’s trials are, and we all have them, we can be more sensitive and sympathetic by using our gifts, following the spirit, and being thoughtful and understanding.

Well, I hope somebody got something out of my thoughts on our infertility. I pray with all my heart it ends soon, but will be willing to accept whatever the Lord’s timing is with the things I’ve learned from it.

This is all for now. My wife thinks I’m insane and need to stop writing. She’s probably right.