Should I spill the beans?

Today I have had two people ask if M and I are going to have a baby soon. I know a lot of people who are infertile (or even women who don't want to have children) are offended by this question. I understand their argument, that it's no one's business and that by asking this simple question it can hurt someone but I don't feel that way. I am not offended when people ask but I am finding myself either answering the same way "we will have a family someday" or by coming up with some excuse. Most of the people who ask me are friends or family and typically are not strangers, so it doesn't seem weird to me that they would be curious. It has got me thinking lately that maybe it is time to spill the beans about our fertility issues. First, when someone asks me that question it makes me sad and maybe if I told them the real reason they would understand and stop asking. Secondly, maybe if we talked with our family and friends about it more openly it would make things easier.

Don't get me wrong, I have told some of my friends and family but very few. I am sure they are tired of me calling them when I am sad or upset about it. Therefore, if we told more people we could go to more people for support? But telling people makes me nervous. First, it means they know we are trying and it could lead to all the things I don't want to hear like "maybe if you just relax if will happen" or "maybe it's not Gods timing". These are valid points but unless you truly understand that we did relax for a year and still no luck and that we are now in the part that if we are not more active it will never happen. Maybe we could tell them all the struggles and challenges. Maybe they could share our tears with us. But I feel that maybe they won't understand. Maybe they will judge us or worse really not care. Plus, sharing something like this seems so intimate. When trying to have a baby your relationship with your husband becomes more intimate and when you struggle its embarrassing. Will someone understand that?

For now, we haven't said anything but we are certainly weighing the pros and cons. How much longer can we go without telling our parents? How much longer can we hold this in without more support?

As anyone out there struggled with the same issue? I would love to hear stories on how you handled it.

Unhappy

While working at Kmart this weekend I realized two things. First, I have way to much time to think while I am there which lead to my second realization; I am not happy with my life. It one of those moments where you want to deny it but you realize that you can't or at least you can't anymore. I will start off by saying I am not unhappy with everything in my life but there is a significant part that I am not happy with. I think it all boils down to the fact that my life has seem to do nothing but spin off of its axis. Instead of living my life it seems like I am living in an alternate reality and it revolves around everyone but myself.

Many people would argue that your life should not revolve around you but others. I agree, you should not live a selfish life. Your life should be dedicated to the betterment of mankind and the planet. I think everyday you should make an effort to live outside yourself but recently it seems that I am not living outside myself but that my life revolves around everyone else. Everyday my life is filled with raising my brother, with taking care of my mother, of putting fires out in our family, of checking on my grandparents to make sure they are being taken care of and of working to make sure we have enough money to not get in a bind. It's exhausting. On top of taking care of everyone else, I am trying to keep devote time to my marriage, trying to start a family and at the least make sure my friends are alive with quick text messages. My life seems to be consumed with every thing and it seems that there is no time for me.

I am an ambitious person but I have lost it all. I don't know what to do with my life. Even though I enjoy my job I am not sure if there is much growth here for me. I want the opportunity to make something of myself. I want to grow as a professional and one day look back and feel like I have really made a career for myself but I am not even doing that. I feel stagnate with my life. The only thing that seems to be going well is my marriage. We have been able to take all the chances like champions, we still laugh together and enjoy each others company even with the limited time we have together but will that continue if the unhappiness in all the other areas continue? Will I be able to continue to be happy in one area despite being unhappy in the others or will the darkness eventually take it all over?

I don't know what my next step is. I am not sure at this time I really can change much. I could try and change jobs and I could decided to stop trying to start our family to decrease the stress but is that enough? I can't change the fact that I need to be there for my brother. I can't break the promise to my mother that I would take care of her as long as she continues to try in her life (and stays in town). So here I am realizing I am not happy and needing to do something about it but I just don't know what.

One step forward

Yesterday we got exciting news. T was accepted into a high school to college program at our technical school in town. He will be studying precision machinery there in the afternoons next school year! It's a great program and a great step for him. We have been worried that a traditional route to college may not be attainable right away for him because we are getting such a late start preparing him. We encouraged him to apply for this program because he is a hands-on learner and because it would be a great stepping stone for him outside of high school. We encouraged him that if he went his senior year and then one year after that he would be given a technical certificate and then a job placement. He could then either work full-time or use the experience to apply for a four year university proving to them that he could make it in college. I think this is going to be wonderful for him. He was really excited about getting in because he bombed his exam but they made an exception with his references.

I am so happy to see one thing work out and excited to start helping T see all his potential and all the positive things he could do in life. Now we just have to get him through a month of summer school and the enrollment process and we are on our way to a successful graduation and now down a career path (even if it is just temporary). Fingers crossed this all works out because it could be a path that opens so many doors for him in the future.

The First Cut Is the Deepest

Yesterday we received our first fertility test results back. There were not good. We have always known there is something wrong with me. My body doesn't work the right way. We have always been hopeful that the medicine would be the only thing we needed to get pregnant but my doctor would not continue the medicine any more without testing. So he set us up for our first two test, my HSG which I have been waiting to get AF to schedule and M's semen analysis. AF finally showed on Saturday after a long 2 week wait so I called the doctor to schedule my test. While I was talking with the nurse I asked her if we had the results back from M's SA and if the doctor wanted to prescribe the medication to me to start taking (since I have to take it cycle day 3-7) so that if my test came back normal we could try this month. She said she would double check with the doctor and call me back with an appointment time and answers. My first indication that something was wrong should have been the lack of call last week with results and the second indication should have been the nurse calling me back pretty quickly which is unusual for her. She told me that M's SA results were not good. He had a low count and a high percentage of abnormal sperm. She said the doctor would not schedule my procedure or call out any medication until M was looked at by a urologist and that his 'problems were diagnosed and fixed'. Now, I know it makes sense especially since our insurance doesn't cover anything so we have to pay out of pocket. We shouldn't schedule a test if we already that could be unnecessary if we know there is another problem to fix. She told me to call a specialist in Tulsa and that if we needed anything to give them a call.

After the call ended, it took everything in me not to breakdown in my office. Why do hard phone calls like that always have to happen at work? So I held myself together. Its tough hearing that there is more than one problem with having a baby. Its tough hearing that your chances have severely diminished and that you may not even been able to treat it because your insurance doesn't pay. But I think what's worse is having to break the news to your husband. How are you supposed to go to someone that you love and tell them they are part of the problem? More importantly how do you go to a man and tell him that the problem is with his 'manhood'? I know that we shouldn't think that that but I know that it must make him feel slightly less like a man even though I don't see it that way. Want to know what made everything worse? This happened on a Monday. The one night I work 12 hours and he works a noon-9pm shift meaning the only time we really see each other is at 4:00pm when we both take a lunch break. I knew I wouldn't make it through lunch without him asking if I talked to the doctor and if something was wrong. Therefore, I had to tell him during a terrible time where we both have to go back to work and maul it over before coming home.

So I steeled my nerves and told him. He reacted as I thought. He internalized everything. I could tell he was upset, sad, angry, and much more but he didn't really say anything. I tried to talk with him but he really just said "I feel bad that I can't give you a baby". It was a terrible hour made worse by the lack of tears or emotions. We said our goodbyes and went to work. I of course got stuck working in the children and infant clothing section last night making my emotional boil up but needing to keep them at bay.

Things got better last night. We were able to talk a bit more and I assured him I didn’t see this as his failure but another failure of being a human because our bodies don’t always work correctly. I told him that I was sort of relieved that we shared the burden of the infertility together (I know you may be thinking it's terrible to say but it did help). I told him there are lots of ways to make a family and we shouldn't jump to any conclusions until we saw the specialist. More importantly I told him I loved him and that this wouldn't change us. That we would stay the same and my feelings for him wouldn't change because of something like this. I think it helped but I also know neither of us slept well last night.

Today I am just reminded that "the first cut is the deepest" and that we will not let this sap our joy from us.

Still Waiting

Waiting is the hardest part of anything. It's terrible when I am in the two week wait to find out if we are pregnant or not but it is even worse having to wait for testing. We did M's semen analysis on Tuesday and we are still waiting to hear something back. It's even more frustrating because there is a good chance that we may have to redo the test. See when it was ordered by my doctor he didn't tell us that we have to schedule an appointment to bring in the same. All he told us was that the lab opened at 7:30am and we could go anytime we wanted. He also didn't tell us the guidelines we needed to follow for the test. Thankfully, I read some things online but everything said different things so we estimated but what our lab wanted was different from what we did. The lab took our sample and said they would call us back to say if we needed to redo the test or not. We have heard nothing. Now that could mean that they accepted it and that we are just waiting for the doctor to give us the news but our lab was just bought out by another company so everything is running slower, meaning everything is in the air. Secondly, I am waiting for AF to show up so I can take my test. She was suppose to arrive 3-7 days after the medication. We have passed that deadline and are coming up on two weeks. She needs to show so we can get this show on the road. I am just ready to get it over with so I know if there is a problem or not. I have known for a long time that I would have trouble conceiving but now we need to confirm that. I hate the waiting. It could be something simple like a hormone imbalance but it could be something much worse and we won't know anything until AF comes and we can run the test.

So here we are waiting. Waiting to know if M's test is good. Waiting to run mine. Waiting to get pregnant. I sure do hate all this waiting.

It's been too long

I haven't posted for a while. Things have been quite crazy lately, primarily with work. Our biggest fundraiser happened this past weekend but I have spent the last few weeks running around getting ready for it. It is always quite a task but it was even more difficult this year with my added responsibilities at the fundraiser, my part-time job, having a teenager, trying to have a baby and being part of a few committees that just happen to be starting up now in my busy season. I don't think I have stopped moving or turned off my brain for more than a few hours in the past two months. I am so thankful having a day off tomorrow. I plan to do nothing except maybe get my hair cut and a pedicure. I need a day to recover, a day to not think or have any responsibilities.

I figured this post would just be a quite update on how things have been:

1. T finally has a job. He has works most evenings from 5-9 and about 5-midnight on the weekends at our local Taco Bell. I am glad he got a job there because it's within walking distant. He seems happy so far. He will get his first paycheck today. He is doing well in school. He has finished up his night classes, has just two weeks left of regular school and then one month of summer school. After that he will officially be a senior and will just have one year left to finish. We are still hoping to get him into the trade school in town this year. It's nice because he can be hands on and get high school credit. It is in the air right now because (as he always does) he rushed through the testing needed and didn't score well. I guess only time will tell.

2. The part-time job is going well. It like having a job that doesn't require any real brain power and that I can just be left to myself. It is a big disappointing to see how little the paychecks are. I know I don't work much but its discouraging because when you stack it up against everything on my plate it is pretty sad because I am going to have to work there much longer than I anticipated.

3. We are still not pregnant. Our off month produced nothing. I went back to the doctor and he has ordered some test. M just did his semen analysis yesterday but may have to repeat it because there was a problem at the lab. We are waiting to hear back. I have taken my 10 days of Provera to start my cycle so that I can go have an HSG ran to make sure my tubes are clear. You are supposed to start your cycle 3-7 days after the last pill but no more than 14 days. It's been 10 days post medication and still no cycle. I will give it till next week and if AF doesn't show I will have to call the doctor and maybe get on a new medication. I wish I could say I didn't start because I was pregnant but I took a test the other day. Negative.

4. I am excited that my friend may come to visit in a couple weeks. She is living in Chicago this summer for an internship. I am pretty jealous of that but so proud of her. In fact, I would be excited to see any of my friends in the next couple weeks. It's been crazy and I don't feel like I have really had interaction with anyone besides co-workers, strangers and my immediate family. I may be going crazy over that.

5. We have the Warrior Dash 5K this weekend. Yesterday was the first day I have ran and done push-ups/weights in three weeks. Needless to say, I am not prepared for it so I might die.


Hopefully, the next time I blog I will have so good news about some of these things!