The following is a post that I wrote on Shelby’s blog in 2008. I have linked to it in the past, but wanted to re-post it here for posterity sake. It’s still one of my favorite posts ever. If you have already read this, thank you!

---

My wife mentioned to me that she posted pictures about a day in the life of an “infertile,” which contains pictures of things most men assume only exist horror movies, and raunchy pornos (or so I hear). So, I figured this would be a perfect opportunity to introduce you to a day in the life of a male infertile. Side note: this was at a time where I was in a particularly bad job, and events took place about a year ago. Without further ado;

A Bird in the Hand is Worth Two in the Bush (yes, you can read into that)
Today is the day where I get to actually lend a hand (ha!) in our reproductive challenges. I know this because my alarm goes off an hour earlier than it should. It should be an interesting day. Shelby reminds me that my appointment is at 7:30 AM and that she’s picking up my little soldiers at 10:00 AM. I silently hope that the fruits of my ‘participation’ are a lot of soldiers, instead of my usual ‘Army of One’. I roll out of bed, and get ready. Luckily for me, I don’t have makeup to put on, hair to curl, or whatever it is that takes you ladies so long to get ready. I’m out the door in 30 minutes. It is 7:00 AM; a half-hour should be plenty of time to get to my appointment.

Can You Hear Me Now?
Being someone who loves anything with a digital display and buttons, I love my tech gadgets. However, a cell phone can be a harbinger of doom. I’m convinced that it’s psychic too. It predicts my day. Is work going to be busy, annoying, light, or anything in-between? I know the answer within 5 minutes of getting in my car. My phone literally rings off the hook the entire time I’m in my car. My commute to the reproductive clinic is about thirty minutes. Instead of relaxing and reflecting on what may (or sadly, may not) be, I’m barraged with meaningless work related questions, false assumptions and over-reactive concerns. I arrive to the doctor’s office tense. Not just tense, but teeth clenching, jaw breaking, a whore in church on Sunday tense. You’d think with my impending ‘release’ I would be more relaxed, but it is quite the opposite, I assure you. My phone keeps ringing. I am now sitting in the parking lot, trying to wrap up a call with an angry co-worker and am struggling to remember where the clinic entrance is.

Cum Again?
I step out of the car and am caressed by the cool fall air. Today is one of those rare days where, somehow, the air kissing my face makes me feel much better- relaxed even. If this was a Folgers commercial, I’d close my eyes, take a sip of warm steamy coffee, inhale deeply, and smile to myself. I wonder what I’m complaining about. I get to wake up, look at some boobies and do what every 15 year old does when they find their first Victoria’s Secret catalog.

It takes me a while, but I finally find “Suite J.” I turn the door knob and am expecting to be greeted by a nice reception area (especially given how much all this fertility stuff costs). Walking into the clinic, something very familiar jogs my memory. The door rubs against the door jamb when I open it making a very loud sound to announce my presence, the smell of fake very artificial potpourri is in the air, there is almost no carpet between my feet and the floor boards are so worn, they creek under my feet. I have the vague feeling that I’ve been here before. It hits me; I’m visiting a shitty retirement home. The only thing it is missing is the obligatory old people on the park bench waiting for “Johnny” except, Johnny never shows. Instead of old folks waiting, the first people I see are a couple who looks nervous and a woman, sitting alone, waiting for her appointment. As a guy, walking into the clinic alone, I might as well wear a neon sign around my neck with an arrow pointing to my crotch that says “I’m about to tug on this.” Suddenly and expectantly, my tension is back. I pity the guy who has an easy time getting aroused at the smell of “grandma’s place.” I am sure they exist and live in the seedier areas of the internets. I consider creating a fetish website around this clinic, as I’m sure it will do well in said circles.

In Soviet Russia, Penis Rubs You
What I find most interesting about offices that revolve around fertility is that my expectation for a sensitive, caring, empathetic receptionist is not met each and every time. Funny thing is that I’m always surprised by this. This office is no exception. As I make my way through the creaking retirement home, I am greeted by a battle axe of a woman. Pleasantly greeting me would be way too cliché, instead, she stares blankly, and without much effort says “Name?”. As an aside, I am not a confrontational person at all, in fact I’ll work harder to avoid one than if a confrontation actually took place. I like to be overly friendly with people like this. “Hi!” I say a little too loudly and enthusiastically. “My name is (hmm, pen name time…) Johnny and I have a 7:30 appointment.” She looks at the loud ticking clock by her desk and scowls, its 7:45. She breaks down the process. “Put name on cup, go in cup, leave cup in room, and leave out the back.” My passive aggressive side kicks back in, “go in cup? I’m not here to pee.” I’d like to pretend that I’m embellishing this, but not really. I questioned being asked to “leave out the back” and she points to a partly opened door through what looks like the break room. I am then lead to ‘the room’.

Tonight on OMG KILL IT WITH FIRE
You know those episodes of Dateline NBC that reveal how disgusting motel rooms are? Let’s just say I’m very glad I didn’t have a UV light with me. I’m not the cleanliest person, but this room grossed me out. A little context here; I was THE FIRST appointment of the day. No one else has used this room and I was greeted with the following;

1. The obligatory leather chair that’s been so warn I can see where every bare ass has sat
2. A trash can FULL of used paper towels. Unfortunately, these paper towels didn’t clean up spilled apple juice.
3. The same creaky floors and good ‘ol musty smell
4. Volume buttons on the TV that do not work. On top of that, the volume is set a tad too high to be comfortable for the material I’ll be “enjoying”

In this disgusting room, somehow, I am supposed to produce what may become mini-me.

Everything I have gone over can be explained away, none of it really matters except one thing; What adult materials do I get to enjoy while working on, ahem, producing? Let me tell you, who ever chose said adult materials, is either blind, sick, or a cheap bargain bin-hunting asshole. Whatever happened to normal, attractive people porn? This isn’t it. Titles from their VAST selection of four are “Thai Me Up”, “Big Booty Bitches”, “Luv you long time 5” and (I kid you not) “No White Chicks.” I flash back to a conversation with my wife the previous night:

Her: “Why don’t you put some hot chick action on your iPhone”
Me: “Nah, knowing my luck, someone will start messing with my phone at work and two chicks loving on each other will show up.”
Her: “So what! Just delete it when you are done. I’ll even download some for you. Where do you find that stuff?
Me: “I have no idea what you’re talking about. There’s pornographic material on the internet?” (I like to tell her and my friends that I keep my porn on her computer since she’ll never look there)

I simply do not understand the selection of these four titles. Maybe I’m in the minority here but just show me two attractive people doing it and I’m good. The sad thing is that the people, clothes, hair styles (and not the hair on the head), and production values are from the 70’s. There is nothing erotic about any of this. Watching the old married couple from “That 70’s show” do it on the linoleum flower counter tops would be more arousing. I curse myself for not following my wife’s iPhone suggestion.

You’d think it would end here, but it doesn’t. While the “act” is occurring, you can hear, through the paper thin walls, staff members laughing and talking loudly in the other room. When your pants are down, and you’re exposing yourself to the lovely “Big Booty Bitches” on the TV, laughter is the last thing you should hear. Ironically, I gain a little respect for the fat, ugly hairy man in the video who can get a hard on at the drop of a hat (or pants).

Eventually, nature takes hold (man, I got to stop with the insinuations) and I’m ready to get the hell out of this place. I always wonder how long you should wait after doing your deed. It seems nasty to walk out of THE ROOM with a flushed brow. In this case I could have walked out with my pants down because I was greeted to the receptionist pointing her meaty arm and sausage finger towards to back door asking me to “out that way.” God forbid the nervous couple and solitary woman see me leave the way I came in.

I walk out the door. The crisp air welcomes me once again and I let out a small sigh of relief. The fall air breathes its life into me and I am refreshed. Smelly grandma’s house is such a small price to pay in what could become the best thing that has ever happened to us. I silently thank Shelby for enduring so much; more than I will ever understand. I get back to the car; my cell phone reports that I have 18 missed calls and 10 voicemails. Time to start the day.

A few weeks ago, Shelby bolted upright from her near-permanent resting position on our sectional and to my surprise declared that she “WANTS INDIAN FOOD SO BAD.” This surprised me on 2 levels. The first, Shelby was actually able to dig herself out of the Shelby shaped indentation on the couch. The second, she actually wanted something that wasn’t a popsicle, cereal, or nacho cheese Doritos. We’re making progress here, people!

Immediately, I launch myself out of my seat, grab the car keys and race to the garage. Understand, my panic and speed are out of one very important reason, I love Indian food. I know that any change in speed, wind direction, or even a butterfly flapping its wings in Japan will change Shelby’s mind and she’ll fall back into her couch shaped indentation and make me get her the 100th popsicle of the day.

We’re out the door before she could even pick up her purse.

I hold my breath the entire way there praying she doesn’t change her mind, and finally we arrive. Shelby’s looking a little green at this point. Maybe it was my driving? Maybe it’s her sense of DOG LIKE SMELL. I’m beginning to sweat now. I don’t want my Indian food ripped from my hands when we’re SO close. Taste buds are already set to spicy, and they aren’t turning back.

We walk into the restaurant and I scream “Naan, and Chicken Vindaloo, STAT!” before the poor waiter even asks us “how many?” As the realization that we’re finally sitting down and that we are actually ordering food sinks in, I let myself calm down. Shelby and I make small talk and try and avoid the elephant in the middle of the room, or in her belly for that matter, but eventually our conversation drifts that direction. As our waiter pours my 10th glass of water, and Shelby’s 2nd lemonade (never mind the fact that I begged her not to order it. Lemonade and Indian food? Gross) we start to talk about family trees.

I come from a very small family. I may be a triplet, but that about covers it. My Dad has two brothers. One of which adopted a son, and conceived a daughter and the other decided to not have kids (ALS runs in the family and they didn’t want to tempt fate). We were born almost 3 months premature, weighed 2 pounds each. Our birth was less than perfect and the doctors predicted certain demise. We made it, however it was not scott free. One of my brothers was born with severe brain damage and will never experience many of the life events we all have the opportunity to enjoy. He’ll never date, marry, or try to conceive a child, nor does he have any concept of those things. The other, as I mentioned in a previous post, is about to get married and start a family.

As I break off a piece of Naan, Shelby and I take stock of my family tree with those that share my last name.

• My female cousin is basically a non-member of the family by choice (crazy lady with 10 cats and a few kids who, when explored adoption, got denied because she didn’t want to turn the “cat room” into a bedroom for the potential kid.)
• My male cousin, who was adopted, just had a daughter. Don’t know their long term family plans.
• My brother and his bride-to-be, well, your guess is as good as mine.

That’s it. That’s the family tree.

As we finish dinner, something that has never even occurred to me hit me like a ton of bricks. Is my family tree about to have a broken branch? Up to this moment, I had little preference on wanting a boy or girl. I just want baby, but does this change things? I’ve only just come to grips on my own infertility, and now I’m contemplating the end of my line.

Shelby and I wrap up dinner, and as I drive us and our full bellies home, I’m unsure how to process this.

Am I just placing unnecessary pressure on myself?

I’m just… unsure.

This is a new emotion for me to process, and I haven’t figured it out yet. Is it something I *really* care about? Is it society’s added pressure on us men? Does my line really end? Have I found the core reason of why we procreate?

How do I deal with these questions and where do I go to find those answers?

Have any of you thought about these things? What’s your take?

Related to my previous post about the weight of the wait, there’s another topic that been heavy on my mind. Our little gummy is doing great, but I can’t help think about all the things that are riding on this little one. As you can imagine, another loss this late in the game would be, obviously, devastating for us. I simply refuse to fathom what that would be like, but still, I can’t help but go over the coming months and how that loss would impact it.

After losing our last bean, my world came crashing down on top of me. I found myself unable and unwilling to take part in family events. I couldn’t even bring myself to see my cousin’s new baby. It was a harsh reminder of something that came so easily to them, and was quite the opposite for me. Our bean would have been born early January, and their baby was born in September. We would talk about how awesome it would be to see our kids grow up together. Now, to me, their baby is just a physical reminder of what we lost.

I hate that I feel that way about it. Part of me feels petty and selfish, the other part is just protecting myself. It sucks. I miss my cousin and I’m sure, he misses me, but this isn’t something I can easily share with someone who may not “get it.”

I feel that there is so much riding on our little gummy. There’s some huge life events coming up, and Shelby’s pregnant belly plays a huge part in them. To me, it completes these life events. Makes them whole. Makes them even more special. Things are TOO perfect right now, and it scares me.

• One of my close friend’s wife is due in September. I want to be happy for them, but I can’t help but feel bitter. This blow is lightened by the fact that Shelby is due in November. I’m afraid a loss would cause me to break off all ties for a long time, and I’d be angry at myself about that. We’re still dreading the baby shower, but at least it will be tolerable since it gives us “our” shower to look forward to.
• I will be the best man for my brothers wedding in September. Shelby will be a bridesmaid. Ever since they asked us to be in the wedding party, I’ve fantasized about Shelby’s pregnant belly, in her beautiful (hopefully!) bridesmaid dress as she walks down the isle. There is something spiritual, and beautiful about her being pregnant as another family member ties the knot. It’s the growth of our small family and a beautiful representation of love.
• In related to the above, engagement parties, bachelor(ette) parties, bridal parties will all be joyous occasions in the coming months. I want to be a part of it.
• This may sound selfish, but we’ve been trying to have a baby for so long, and I want to be the first in my family do so. I know that my brother and his fiance will try right away, and it will kill me to be robbed of being the first. This also brings fears of what it will be like to be an uncle after loss. I can’t fathom it.
• If we experience loss, I’m afraid that I will withdraw from everything. I’ll become a grumpy old man who wants to get the damn kids off my lawn. I won’t want to go anywhere, do anything, or see anyone and I am afraid at how long that will last. Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years will all be canceled. I won’t want to see friends or family at that time. I know it will kill my parents to see that, but it will have to be done.

This list weighs heavily on my shoulders, but none of it could compare to the agony of a second loss. The timing of this pregnancy couldn’t be more perfect and I long to experience these events while our baby is baking in Shelby’s oven.

Okay, we paid $15,000 more than we needed to by doing a shared risk program, but we were lucky to be given so much medication for this cycle for free it softens the blow. Even spending that 15k more than we needed to seems fitting to me. The infertility gods wouldn’t give up the opportunity to stick it to us one last time, but surely this is where it stops, right?

Fate, I’m on my hands and knees, begging you to let me experience this year of happy times.

Let Shelby be a mom, let me be a father to this little gummy.

You’re not cruel to rob us of these happy times, and of parenthood.

Are you?

Anyone who’s known me for more than a day, knows that I’m not the type of guy that likes to wait. I’m too impulsive. Don’t believe me? I’d like to share a few “instant gratification” facts about me, before I get to the point.

-My first word was “more.”
-As a kid, whenever I finished a meal, say breakfast, I’d ask what was for lunch.
-As a kid, I’d incessantly ask “are we there yet?”
-I started working in technology at 15 with a full time, professional gig at 18 and dropped out of college to accept a higher paying position with more responsibility
-Shelby and I got married at 21
-We always open a birthday gift WAY too early. Like a month.
-We once booked a cruise on a Wednesday and left that Saturday.
-As an aside, but related, I *hate* the sound of a ticking clock. Always have. It drives me nuts.

Get the point? I don’t like to wait for something. As soon as I set my mind to it, I have to have it. LIKE OMG RIGHT NOW! I was pretty used to this, and it worked for me. Usually, I’d find a way to get what I had my sights set on, and it worked out. Well, this instant gratification nature didn’t really work when it came to two big stages of life.

Infertility and what I like to call “The Pregnant Infertile”

If my road was Instant Gratification Highway, Infertility was the fake, painted, tunnel on the side of a mountain that Wild E. Coyote painted on. Except in my case, I didn’t run though that tunnel like the Road Runner. So much for cruising though life, eh? Our infertility put 5 years of our life on complete standstill. Every test, test result, 2 week wait, and the wait to start trying for the next cycle was excruciating for me. I felt the weight of every day. It was a difficult adjustment for me, but we survived.  We took it day by day and eventually those days turned into weeks. Weeks turned into months, months turned into years and somehow, we find ourselves in an entirely new type of wait. This wait has a time line that is very clear, which hopefully, is 9 months.

Shelby and I are at 10 and a half weeks. This is the same 10 and a half weeks where our world, just shy of 10 months ago, our came crashing down on us, but for now, all we can do is wait. We did the 2 week wait, the beta test wait, the ultrasound wait,  the short, but endless wait while our doctor finds the beating heart of our gummy all before, but now we wait some more.

I feel the weight of the wait.

Every tick of the clock is felt. Our next ultrasound is on the 30th and we’ll be almost 12 weeks. In my heart, I know that our last bean’s time was already past well before this 10 and a half weeks but until we see our gummy on the screen, wiggling around, I won’t feel any relief. Every second is felt, weighed, and endured until we can see our gummy on screen again.

Now that we are at 10 and a half weeks with our gummy, I find myself silently mourning the loss of our last bean all over again. We’ve been here before, and while, in my heart, I know that everything is ok, I worry that it won’t be.

I want our bundle of joy more than anything else in the world, and all I can do is wait. I feel helpless. There is simply nothing I can do. My desire to parent, to teach, to father, to BECOME a father is strong but our little gummy is already teaching *me* something:

Relish and enjoy the weight of the wait.

I’m already in your hearts and I’ll be with you soon, but for now, just wait.

In keeping with the theme of helping interview requests on Lost and Found Connections, I noticed a request for responses on how infertility has changed your sense of self. I approached this reservations as I knew that thinking about those answers would be quite a bit harder than my last interview. However, I think I owed it to myself to really think about how infertility has changed me. It was a difficult few hours as I composed those questions, and I’d like to share them with you.

---

1. Do you believe that you have undergone a significant shift in your sense of self? (Please note that if your answer is “No”, then the rest of these questions will be irrelevant to you!)

If you asked me this question a year ago, my answer would have been “no.” Today, I can emphatically say, “yes.” Looking back, I can see this shift taking place, but it hasn’t been until recently that I’ve allowed myself to accept, embrace and understand it.

My attempt at resisting this change was to shut down emotionally and simply ignore what was occurring. In doing so, I feel I placed a burden of dealing with our infertility (the cause of this shift) solely on my wife. Empathy at this time was difficult for me (this could be a whole other paper!), and I struggled with opening myself up to the hurt of infertility and just tried to be a shoulder to cry on for my wife and didn’t take the time or effort to accept my part of it.

If I would describe my change, I don’t really consider it a “shift” per se, but more of a ‘coming into my own,’ growing as a man and husband, and allowing me to be (and become) the person I am.

2. What do you feel precipitated this shift? Was there a specific event or point in time? Was the change gradual or sudden?

We found ourselves pregnant after an IUI around a year ago that resulted in a miscarriage at 10.5 weeks. It was difficult to move from infertility to “wow, I’m going to be a father” to dealing with the pain of it being ripped away. It wasn’t until I was in such a broken state of grief and sadness did I start to reflect on the past years of infertility and allowed it to absorb sense of self. Hind sight allows me to see this shift over time, but it wasn’t until that singular event of no longer seeing a heart beat on the screen of the ultrasound did I allow myself to grasp my internal shift of self. My shift was gradual during the first 4 years of infertility followed by a “kick in the ass” in this past year. Growing with my wife, going though IVF, becoming pregnant again and starting my blog has definitely helped me understand and embrace my “new self”

3. Describe yourself both before and after the change. What areas of you life or aspects of your self were most significantly impacted?

Maybe I am too critical of my “before” self, but I see that person as lacking empathy, self-awareness, and the ability to express oneself. It was too easy for me to turn off my emotions just too simply get through it. Eventually, turning myself off no longer worked.

Today, I find myself a better, more understanding husband who is so much more in love with his wife than ever before. When coping and reflecting on my own infertility and allowing me to “feel” those emotions and the loss that came along with them, it helped me understand her plight and hurt in this process.

It’s hard to explain, and I’m not sure how, but I felt like infertility broke me down to my core, and luckily, somehow, I built myself up and became a better person.

Currently, the most significant impact has been my relationship with my wife. We’ve been married almost 9 years, there is a deep love there but I think she really, really sees how I feel now. That’s not to say I was a bad husband, but I am able to do a much better job at communicating how I see our relationship though “my eyes”

In the future, I am 100% sure that I will be a better father because of this change, and that will be most significant of all.

Infertility and loss has been a very hard road but I’m a better man, husband, and soon to be father because of it.

4. How have others viewed your shift? What has the external response been? Are people quick to adjust or slow, positive or negative, etc.?

I think the jury is still out on this. I think that this shift is really only evident to myself and my wife. If anything, I think this shift has caused me to be “less” of a friend to those that have known me for many years. Infertility has caused us to see people (“fertile”) much less than we used to. It was simply too hard. I am not yet comfortable talking about our battle with others who have not experienced it. It’s too abstract for most people to “get.”

However, we have made lifelong friendships with those that we have met through infertility support groups. Those only know us after this “shift.”

I also don’t know if family has clued into a shift. While they are very familiar with our struggles, they will never fully understand it. I wouldn’t be comfortable with giving them a link to my blog. Mom would really take it to heart and hurt, not only for our pain, but for the feeling “causing it” by giving birth to pre-mature triplets. However, in general I still feel like they wouldn’t ‘get it.’

Okay, I’ll fess up I think those are just excuses. I still have some growing to do and it’s easier to hide behind the anonymity of my blog and reaching out to strangers than allowing family to really see how much this hurts. I also don’t want to hurt my relationship with them if/when I get upset that they ‘just don’t understand.’ My Dad especially still doesn’t get that we have male-factor and not just female factor. It’s almost like his attitude is “NOT MY SON” and it threatens his manliness. (That’s not to say he’s not supportive and usually says all the right things, but I’m reaching deep here.)

So, in summary, my shift of self has been mostly internal.

5. What has been your response to the shift? Have you undergone a shift in behavior or habits or lifestyle? What about in the way you judge your own (or others’) actions?

I don’t think my habits or lifestyle has really changed. There has been a huge loss of relationships with friends, and I think that could be associated with my shift of self. I’d like to blame it on infertility, but that’s not quite it. I think my shift has caused me to need something more than what my current friendships offer. They aren’t deep enough. They are the same friends I’ve known for 15+ years, but it is very superficial.

It’s very frustrating that others don’t “get” what we’ve been though and how it has changed me. Maybe the next part of this shift will allow me to share it with others (others being, ‘fertile”)

Lifestyle and behavior wise, I am much less naïve and sometimes bitter about it. I no longer view myself as living a “charmed” life where things come easy. I think fate has been very cruel to us in these last 5 years and I notice myself less optimistic because of it.

6. Do you believe that you are fundamentally the same person now as you were before your shift? Describe as best you can what leads you to the conclusion to which you come. Specifically, what factors do you use to determine your core sense of self?

Fundamentally, I am the same person. This is cheesy, but I really see it as if I went a transformation from a caterpillar to a butterfly in a way. I’m still the same person, but a little more beautiful inside. There are some deep scars from the transformation, and they will always be there, but they will fade.

I think my sense of self has evolved. I no longer want to take the easiest path (internally), but want to really allow myself to feel what I feel and understand it.

Before, I felt that I had a disjointed sense of self. I just focused on what others wanted me to be and blocked out my own sense of self. Today, the simple fact that I can answer this interview and will be sharing these answers with my wife helps me realize how far I’ve come. My sense of self is now formed from what I think and feel in my heart after taking the time to actually understand it. I no longer just pick the easy answer and move on like “nothing happened”