Special Guest Blog, by DH (Part 1)

I thought about setting up my own blog for the occasional fertility topic I might want to comment on, but since everyone already visits here, I figure showing up as a guest from time to time would work just fine.

So Kristi has very eloquently articulated her side of our fertility struggles, I figure I'd share some thoughts from the masculine perspective.

To say that Kristi was excited about getting pregnant is an understatement of epic proportions. So after being happily married for several months, we both decided we’d get the process going. We went about it the natural way for a couple of months. Being that Kristi’s only fault might be some impatient qualities (what, Kristi??? :) she mentioned it to her doctor at a routine visit. Her response was that she wouldn’t have even considered it a fertility issue unless you’ve been trying at least six months, but a year isn’t that unrealistic. So we kept at it, thinking nothing of it. Somewhere during this period, Kristi found a drug more addictive than Crack – the Trying To Conceive forums at AmericanPregnancy.org. Here she learned about everything from Temping (tracking your temperature daily to see if you are about to ovulate) to the Two Week wait (the time from ovulation until your next period. I.e. the agonizingly long timeframe where you hope on hope you are pregnant). It turns out that on the forum you speak in tongues. Terms like DH (Dear Husband), BD (Baby Dance – no explanation needed), BFN (big fat negative – a negative pregnancy test), OPK (ovulation predictor kit – a test to see if you are ovulating, assuming you aren’t temping), etc. etc. There are tons more, but that’s not what this blogs about.

Anyway, after around a year of trying we decided start the infertility investigation. We did the routine non-invasive tests to detect some common fertility problems. I did the whole “Cup” thing and Kristi was given blood work and ultrasounds. We both decided we didn’t need to do genetic testing, (like that would ever happen to us), which turned out to have been a very costly mistake. But more on that later. It turns out that everything looked good in my department. I had high motility (my boys can swim!) and count (they want you to have around 25 million sperm per payload, and I delivered 80 million in my first test. That’s like shooting fish in a barrel with a shotgun :) So, it appeared that I was OK and they amped up the investigation with Kristi. It seemed as though Kristi had a mild form of Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS in forum speak) and she also underwent a hysteroscopy/laparoscopy to remove some Endometriosis. Both are kinda complicated things that I welcome you to Google about, if you are interested. Kristi was definitely my little trooper!

So it seemed we had figured out what our issues were and were excited to take the next steps. Our doctor recommended doing an IUI (Intra Uterine Insemination). Basically they actively monitor ovulation and then deliver my half directly to the fertile grounds, in hopes of improving your chances of the sperm meeting up with the egg. When two rounds of IUI weren’t successful, we had finally made it to the pinnacle of the fertility mountain climb. The IVF. In Vitro Fertilization. Test Tube Babies. Better living through Chemistry.

This was a whole new stage of fertility treatment. It involves using lots of different drugs to totally manipulate the menstrual cycle to whatever whim they need. But first, you need a lot of eggs. A LOT OF EGGS. Given that a normal female drops one each month, some serious chemistry is involved. And also needles. A LOT OF NEEDLES. And, bless her heart, Kristi just didn’t have the heart to administer the drugs to herself. So, that job fell to me. I can, without a doubt, say that I was extremely nervous. But, when the time came, I rose to the challenge. And it turns out, it wasn’t that bad. You just have to hold it like a pencil and make a quick single motion, press in the plunger, and then remove it. The only part I felt I couldn’t do was the Trigger shot (to make Kristi ovulate when *they* wanted her to ovulate). It’s a whole different class of scary needle, and it’s intramuscular. The scary part (other that the sheer size of it) was that you had pull back on the needle and check for any blood. If so, discard that needle and pick a different place. We hired a nurse to do that shot. Phew. So the egg retrieval day arrived, and they got 18 eggs from Kristi. Those were then fertilized with my sperm and as luck would have it, 12 of them were successfully fertilized. The best two of those where chosen for our first transfer, and they froze the rest.

So the big day came, and our excitement level was at an all time high. We did the transfer and for two weeks, we redefined the term “two week wait”. It was agonizing. Finally, the day of the blood work came. Kristi and I went in, and blood was drawn. A mere 8 hours later, we got the call we were dreaming of. Kristi was Pregnant!!! They promptly scheduled our first ultrasound, a mere week away. And it was on that Friday that we discovered we were doubly blessed. We were pregnant with Twins. Can you imagine, after all this time of trying to learn you have an insta family? It was an amazing feeling. It’s one of the highest highs you’ll ever know.

But, we wouldn’t be writing this blog if it was all rainbows and butterflies. Our babies heartbeats seemed a little low (100 b.p.m instead of 110-120). Nothing to be worried about. (Or so we thought). We came back the following Monday to learn the most heart wrenching news we had to face as a married couple. Our twins heartbeats had dropped to 50 b.p.m. Our insta family was gone. I was so devasted I didn’t go back into work that day. In fact, I didn’t even let anyone know I wasn’t coming back, because in my joy on the previous Friday, I was showing everyone the ultrasound of my twins. How do you go back and tell everyone the bad news. It was easier not to deal with it. We had also told all of our family as well. While it’s still kinda hard for me to write all of this stuff down now, dealing with any of that at the time seemed impossible. We were both utterly crushed.

To be continued…