These are actual notes from him. He really is a great man!
Talking to my boyfriend this past weekend, telling him our chances of pregnancy, and talking about the stress we’ve been dealing with.
One never hopes and dreams that their perfect family starts at a fertility clinic. When we are little, and dream of our perfect wedding and perfect family and having that perfect house “with the white picket fence, 2 kids running around and the yellow lab puppy”, we don’t ponder about how many cycles it would take, or how many trips to the RE, how many needles and bruises and heartbreak we’ll be faced with. But, to some of us, this is our reality. Some of us are lucky enough to have that dream wedding before dealing with infertility, but some of us are forced to choose the financial burden of assisted reproductive technologies, such as IVF, over that dream wedding. But either way, none of us thought it’d be like this!!
My boyfriend really is a typical man, doesn’t talk about ewey gooey emotions, and talking personal stuff with his friends? Forget it! LOL. It’s all boats and trucks and snowmobiles LOL. He did recently, however, tell his best friend “I love her, I think she’s kinda awesome, I do wanna have a kid with her!” Which was, like, WOW!! LOL I about died of shock when I heard that! LOL He actually told his friend something very personal! Now, I’m sure he does talk to them more than I know, at least I really hope he does! He never realized what he was getting himself into, being with an infertile. I didn’t know either, but I think I was a little more prepared than he was… For what though? I really didn’t know.
We got pregnant for our first time in September 2014, naturally. I was over the moon excited!! He was scared, nervous, then excited LOL. But, of course, that pregnancy was short lived.. I was seeing my regular OB/GYN at that time. And maybe if I had told him about my previous losses, he could have done something differently. But I had the misconception that they read your file before seeing you.. I don’t think any do! Even now, seeing my RE, I have gotten to the point where every time I see a different nurse, I tell her straight away, “now I’ve had 5 losses so far, so what are we doing this time?” LOL
So, he was devastated! He’s never gone through this, and not that the 4th time was any easier for me, but he took it very hard! So hard, in fact, that he had thought’s of not being able to go through this again. He cried, he got depressed, and he actually thought of a dumb excuse to break it off with me. Thankfully, 1) I’m smart LOL and 2) he really didn’t mean any of it and all those negative thoughts were short lived! We know how much in love with each other we are! And no matter what, we will always be there for each other when it gets bad like that! And he wants me to have this so badly!
So, the time came when we want to try again. We had taken the summer off to relax and recover. I call the RE’s office. For the first time, we start a Timed Intercourse Cycle with injectables. I had low hopes, I mean, come on, can it really work the first time?? I actually asked the nurse what are the odds, she told me pretty good actually since its all timed. And, in fact, it worked! We got pregnant on the first cycle! He, again, was nervous, but this time for a different reason. He was scared for me! He didn’t want to see me hurt again. We tried to be as cautious as we could, but that didn’t help. We lost that one as well. It was very early tho, so they couldn’t do a D&C. It was basically just a very, very, heavy period with quite painful cramps! Again, the heartbreak ensues. He doesn’t understand why this keeps happening to us! He gets frustrated with himself, the situation. He sees me cry again, and go through days of depression. He just wants to take away my pain, and give me everything I’ve always wanted.
So, we try again, this time almost immediately. Timed Intercourse again, not very sexy… Scheduling sex, kind of takes the fun out of it. No, not kinda, it does!! He feels pressured and stressed the whole time, thinking”I better get this done, and done right!” But, we get the job done, and go on our merry way, doing whatever we did that day. Ok, TWW time.. UUGGHH The longest 2 weeks of your life it seems! I’m feeling my boobies, analyzing every symptom, every feeling. OMG I actually feel pregnant!! I take a HPT, BFN. He tells me, “baby it’s just too early, don’t worry!” Ok, he’s probably right, just relax.. I go for my blood draw, wait in the office for an hour and a half for results to come back.. BFN.. did not take this time.. Of course I cried a little, he was upset as well..
“I don’t know if I can do this again” he says. “This is way too much stress, I can’t even get hard anymore.. I know you’re going through a lot too, but I just can’t do it, you may have to find somebody else” Now, thankfully, those thoughts, again, were short lived. He is so frustrated with this whole situation, and feels there is nobody for him to talk to.. He keeps everything bottled up inside.. I wish I could help him go through this, but I’m going through it also, so it’s so hard! He doesn’t realize the feelings he has, the stress he’s under, is normal. For a guy in his situation anyway. I told him other men go through this too, he was like “Really?!?” It is hard, and there are so many times we both feel like throwing in the towel.. But those feelings are never long lived!
I just wish he has somebody to talk to! Somebody to tell him, it’s ok, you’re feelings are normal! Somebody who’s gone through all this..
Our Chances:
I told him our chances of getting pregnant.
- Naturally, with no doctors, we have a 1 – 4% chance on any given month
- Timed Intercourse with Injectables, probably a 20-30% chance on any given month, (slightly better than a healthy couple trying to conceive naturally [20%])
- IVF with PGD, is about a 40-45% chance! (but very expensive)
We are in the process of mulling these figures over, debating on the second and third option.. If IVF wasn’t so expensive, there would be no mulling over of options…
People actually say that to me? Like their kid is the epitome of how all kids will be. I feel like nobody gets me or my situation. Granted it’s definitely not a typical one, even for someone going through infertility.. But it’s my life! Right? I work as a cashier, my customers come in asking the typical “How are you today?” “I am very good” I reply in a cheery tone. Am I trying to convince myself? The customers? Which, I’m sure they have no idea that anything is wrong anyway..
So I was hoping that February was going to be our month.. My dreams, the symptoms, the dates, it was all too perfect! What’s that saying? “If it’s too good to be true, it probably isn’t true” Yeah, I should have thought of that before.. But Monday Feb 29th came, and all we got was BFN (Big Fat Negative). I cried all the way home! I knew there was a big chance I wasn’t pregnant, but still, my blind hopefull-ness, I thought it was finally my time…
My Infertility Journey 