heartbreaking

There’s some things in life that you just don’t think you’re going to have any problem doing.
It’s kinda like, everyone else does it so there’s no question about it.
Things like riding a bike. And falling asleep. And making toast.
I always thought “getting pregnant” was lumped into that group but apparently I was mistaken.

Here’s the scoop people, I never really get real on my blog because I don’t like to tell people about my problems. For one, I don’t think anyone cares. And two, I don’t want to seem overly whiney or whatever. But seriously this is a huge thing that has happened in our life and a huge freaking bummer and I want to get it off my chest before I explode and die a horrible exploding body parts kind of death.
Also, I'm writing this out on my bloggy blog because I really don't want to have to tell each and every person I know this story in person, mostly because it breaks my heart every time I think about it and I don't like to cry in front of people.
So if bummer style stories turn you off, stop reading. Or stories about prego-ness because in case you didn’t catch the subtle hint up there, that’s what this is.

So Matt and I have been trying to get pregnant for about a year and a half but we kept it on the DL because that’s apparently what people do now until their baby is the size of an egg.  Shortly after the birth control was tossed out the window we noticed my body is a big bag of crazy and can’t seem to get anything right. My “time of the month” was hit or miss which caused many false alarms in the pregnancy department and made us more and more depressed with each passing month. After several months of this nonsense I went to the doc and was checked to see if I had PCOS and was diagnosed with metabolic syndrome, which I wrote about last August. Since then I’ve been dealing with trying to get things under control and eating a ketogenic diet which has helped but after another few months my “time of the month” still wasn’t normal and there was still no baby growing in my tummy. I was checked to make sure I was ovulating, which I was, and given a pill to help my cycles regulate.  Again, still no baby.

Finally we decided it was Matt’s turn to get checked out. We bought a home semen analysis kit and pretended we were lab technicians and found that the test said Matt’s sperm count was low. This caused us to make an appointment at a fertility center and have the weirdest experience ever ever ever ever ever.

If you’ve never been to a fertility clinic or urologist for a semen analysis before you can really only picture how it is in the movies, or at least that’s how I was picturing it before we went. Too bad the movies don’t show you how INCREDIBLY AWKWARD the situation is. So the front desk lady walks us back to a teeny tiny room that’s about the size of my closet at home.  In this room there is a small tube style TV, a bookcase with two giant stacks of porn, a VHS tape labeled “stocking babes” and an old 80s style leather chair that Matt was kind of afraid to sit in. First of all, who knew that they actually supplied porn in these rooms? I thought that was some kind of crazy rumor thought up by men who wished that was the case. And more importantly, VHS? Really? The nurse also told us before she left the room that the door on the other side should stay locked because there was an IVF procedure going on in the next room. So not only did we have to do this awkward thing in this closet sized room from the 80s but we could also hear as a doctor entered the room next door and told the patient to disrobe and get into the gown so they could start the procedure.
HOLY WEIRDNESS GOING ON UP IN THERE!

Okay so nurse lady leaves and doctor and patient about to be knocked up are finally quiet and Matt and I…cannot stop laughing. We are seriously sitting in this room cracking up to the point of crying because of the stacks of porn and the “stocking babes” which made us question if that meant the babes were wearing stockings or if they were sexy girls in grocery store outfits stocking shelves or if they were Christmas babes. I guess we’ll never know. Also, did I mention the weird slightly pornographic artsy fartsy drawings on the walls? No? Well there was like four of them and I couldn’t look at them without cracking up. Awful awful awful. Somehow, amazingly enough, the deed was done and we walked out of the closet room feeling like we had just rented a “pay by the hour” hotel room. But the hard part was over (pun intended) and the sample was with the lab so now all we had to do was wait for the results.

So Monday morning we go back to the doctor and are led into this office which is seriously exactly what you see when two people who are trying to get pregnant get brought in to hear bad news. Two chairs facing a desk with a doctor type person behind it using big words and saying lots of sad stuff. I’ll skip all the junk and yadda yaddas that she said and just tell you that a normal sperm count is 15 million, Matt’s sperm count is 0.66 million. That being said, normal baby making techniques, IVF and insemination, while not entirely impossible, are very unlikely to work. We both were able to keep it together when she said this because our home test had already told us something was wrong and we had tried to prepare ourselves. All we wanted to know is what our next step should be and we were told to see this high rated urologist and get a full range of tests done to see what we can do.

So here I am, trying to pretend that I don’t really care that it’s going to take us a lot more time and energy to be parents. I try to tell myself that we can still live our lives and do a lot of cool things while we’re waiting. I try to tell myself that we have time to work on our careers and be able to really have the money to raise a family.  I try to tell myself that up until about 2 years ago I wasn't even sure I wanted kids because I thought I would be a terrible mom. But when all is said and done, I do want a baby now and I will be a freaking ridiculously awesome mom and this whole situation is incredibly heartbreaking. It seems that everywhere I turn people are asking us when we're going to have kids or people are announcing their pregnancies and every time I have to hold it together and try not to think about how it could be years before Matt and I are able to join in the fun.

And to all my family and friends who are currently pregnant, I really am genuinely happy for you. You're all going to be amazing parental units and I promise not to be too jealous and sit at home making voodoo dolls of you and stuff...I think.

 That being said, please don’t hate me if this video is playing on repeat when you come to my house.

Matt and I have watched it several times now 'cause it just makes us feel better mmkay?

and P.S. Matt gave me full permission to share this story.  He read it over before it was posted and made sure I didn't say anything too horribly embarrassing about him or his peeps so it gets his stamp of approval.