Still here

It's the end of the school year. I've said goodbye to all the students that I've come to know over the 180ish days that we were together. I am relieved, exhausted, depressed, and tired. This transition is always difficult. It's a time of reflection, looking back over the huge pile of all the things that have happened and trying to decide what went well and what didn't.

It's also the time when all of my 'other life' worries become much more prominent. It's easy to push them aside to focus on work, but now that work load is light and my brain immediately steers me toward the most pressing thing on my mind: infertility.

I can't even remember if it's 2 or 3 years since we started trying. Our basic diagnosis is that I am generally okay with producing eggs (although my luteal phase is much shorter than my doc wants it to be) and my husband can't produce any good sperm. That's really our problem. So I find it hilarious when we go to the doc and it's MY blood pressure, MY height/weight, etc that gets checked. Next time, I'm going to make HIM sit on the table.

My heart feels broken. I've been trying to push off this feeling for as long as I can, but now with nothing else to focus on, it's back with a vengeance. I survived Mother's Day in church by sternly telling myself that I was NOT going to cry.

I've been having arguments with myself about continuing with treatments- IUI would be our next step, and the Church says 'maybe' it's okay, or 'no, you're sinning'? DH doesn't want to do it. He wants to wait another cycle to see if things happen on their own. But they are obviously not happening on their own, that's why we're seeing a fertility doctor in the first place!

I want to continue with treatment. I feel called to be a mother, and I know DH feels called to be a father. This is our vocation, and I just have a hard time believing that God puts a desire in your heart for a child and then denies you the means to achieve that desire. If IUI doesn't work, then we'll debate the next step in the road: in vitro or adoption. I'm not emotionally or psychologically ready for that yet.

All we want is a family of our own. Is that so much to ask?

Swimming in circles

Fate works in mysterious ways sometimes. The tech at the clinic couldn't reach my husband's phone to give him the results of his latest sperm analysis, so she called me and left a message asking me to call her back. I was in the car with my husband when I got this message because he took me to work today. I called back and we put her on speaker phone.

She said his count and motility looked good....and then the other shoe dropped. He has NO normal sperm. Zero. Zip. Nada.

We were both pretty shocked and upset. I partly felt relieved, "It wasn't me!" and partly guilty. We're going to have a follow-up next Monday. I'm sure she is going to recommend IUI or in vitro fertilization as our best bets, although the 'wait and try again' approach is what she says for right now, just to make sure the test results weren't a fluke.

Well. This certainly turns things for a loop. Stay tuned....