Kids, it occurs to me that I haven’t explained to you why my writing to you went through a lean patch a little while ago…the reasons I’ve stopped spending time on the Fertilicare forum, and the two month gap before my previous post. The thing is, I sort of took a break from infertility – a strange claim I suppose when you have MFI and no sperm, and even more so, when you consider I was still being injected four times a week during that period! There were a whole host of reasons for this break and I’ll try my best to explain them to you – not making excuses, just telling you why.
To begin with, things have been pretty hectic for a number of reasons – work, your gran’s suicide and the resulting work and effort in sorting that out, DIY and other improvements on the house – they’ve all conspired to keep me busy for months…and I’ve taken advantage of that – I’ve revelled in the ability to pretend we’re not infertile, that we’re not trying to have a family, that we’re not smothered in this cloud which is the strange blend of misery and hope that is infertility. I’ve avoided the forum, I’ve avoided my blog reader, I’ve not posted in an age…I buried my head in the sand and my mind in these countless other distractions. I spent my energy planning and building a garden feature and bird-feeder, I supervised painting the outside of the house and have painted most of the inside, we had paving repaired and more paving done, we’ve redesigned the fireplace and had a wood-burning fire installed. And I did all this for a number of reasons. The first and most obvious was the wish to have a break from the constant misery and depressing thoughts. The wish to come out from under that cloud. The wish to spend some time and energy on other things…things that don’t leave you spiralling downwards towards depression. Spending time and energy constructively rather than feeling like the infertility is sucking away all my time and energy. It was probably infuriating for your mom, because I didn’t really even want to talk about it much. I just wanted some time off from it all…avoiding that constant feeling of there being a problem, some nasty ghoul constantly peering over your shoulder, casting a shadow over everything you see and do…that sensation that there’s always this thing in the back of your mind that’s waiting for you to give it just the tiniest acknowledgment, the smallest little bit of attention that signals that it can leap out and totally consume you…that Sunday night feeling every single day.
But those aren’t really the main reason for the break, they’re some of the reason and some of the excuses. As hard as it is to admit, the real reason for the break was the feeling of needing to indulge in some self-protection. You see, we’ve been going at this for over a year, and didn’t appear to be any closer to taking home a baby. When I first started this blog, I sat down and imagined the two of you. I’ve given you names, I’ve pictured talking to you and playing with you, being the stay-at-home dad. I’ve imagined you growing up and becoming an integral part of our lives. I’ve imagined your personalities, your interests, your strengths and weaknesses.
I’ve imagined you into life.
And over the last few months before the amazing SA results, this image of you two had been slowly fading. Reality had intruded. In the same way that your mind starts to lose the clarity when remembering the face of someone who’s gone, how over time, you lose that sharpness of recall. In the same way, you guys started to fade in my mind…as the reality of our situation slowly overwhelmed me, I started to struggle to see you guys in our home, I found it more and more difficult to picture you in the spare bedroom, sitting at the dinner table, swimming in our pool. And the more you faded, the harder it was to post to my blog. Because it started feeling contrived and ridiculous. It started feeling self-indulgent and morose. It started feeling counter-productive. And worst of all, it didn’t feel real. I’d lost this vision of you guys getting to read these messages someday…and without that, what was the point. I needed to step back from the situation, to retreat a while. And that’s what I did. I stepped away from everything other than my 4/week shots.
Strangely, the problem for me seemed to be this treatment plan we’re on…6-9 months of these shots to see if we could get my body to play along. Nothing else to do, nothing else to try, just shots 4 times a week. No counting cycle days, no choosing donors, no scans, no blood tests, no FS visits, just 4 shots per week. Not even timed sex – what’s the point (other than the obvious point of enjoying the experience for what it is). The feeling that we weren’t actually doing anything…can you call it TTC if you don’t actually have sperm…what do you call it? We’re not TTC – we’re not in the race, we’re not even warming up…we’re stuck in the changing rooms trying to find running shoes. They talk about the IF journey – we haven’t even packed the car yet!! There’s no petrol in this IF journey car – the tanks empty and we’re sitting on the sidelines. There’s no progress, there are no milestones…just shots 4 times a week.
Before we went to our first FS appointment, I’d come to terms with the fact that we would be using a sperm donor. I’ve had 17 or 18 years to come to terms with the fact that I will never have my own biological children. So, short of adopting (which is what your mom and I always sort of defaulted to whenever we talked about having kids), the only option was a sperm donor if we were going to have any chance of having children with some biological link to one of us…and that link would obviously be to your mom.
And then it was time for the SA – been on this protocol for 6 months, time to see if it’s doing anything. Not expecting anything…this IF journey is still in the garage – gas tank still empty…still looking for the running shoes…still just treading water…another 6 months till we can give up on my body and move on to finding Zorro (our ejaculating masked hero). And 15 minutes from the clinic we got THE CALL…motile sperm…we’re out of the garage, the petrol gauge is just above empty, but hopefully enough to get us to where we need to go on this journey…we’re at the starting line waiting for the starter’s pistol, waiting for us to finally start the race, hoping desperately we’ll be able to complete it successfully, frantically hoping it doesn’t turn into a relay race – now I’m in it, I really really REALLY don’t want to have to pass on the baton to someone else to help us finish.
And that’s pretty damn exciting.
But the most exciting thing of all is that you guys have re-appeared. The fading process has totally reversed itself – you’ve walked out of the fog and I can see you clearly again. I can practically feel both of you now. And so I’m back…we’re back in business…I’m talking to you as if you’re already here…because it sorta feels like you are.
