So its been a long time since I have made a post on here and that is because I wasn't really sure where to start. But then I started thinking about my days and how once you are a male factor for the infertility and you get diagnosed as sterile, the journey becomes a mission for you to help your partner succeed at. Its funny because most of the time when I tell people we are having fertility problems, they always and I mean always say, don't worry if you try more and practice more it will happen. At this point, I am pretty open about it and I say, noooooo not for me! Most of the time when I am telling that to someone for the first time they almost get offended and immediately feel sorry for me. I have only gotten mad at people twice when I had to respond and it was because they made ignorant and snark comments after I said we were infertile. Problem for those people is that they are just ignorant and will never understand what people go through on a day to day basis when all you want is a baby. But it is great that I am so open about this and that I can talk because if it were 5 or 6 years ago, I would have bottled all inside and it would have led to more aggression towards Stace and more aggression towards life. Now I just talk about it and I like to teach people about it because it truly is something that is common and most people do not know.
So we are starting the final stages of IVF and quite frankly it is getting scary and extremely exciting at the same time. For weeks, I have been joking to Stace about giving her the intramuscular shots and how I finally get to stick her! Well that night came quickly two nights ago when I had to give her the trigger and we drew our circle and got ready to do it. I am normally really good at high pressure situations and can normally keep my composure no problem, but when it came time to sticking a 1.5 inch needle into the woman that I love and that I might cause her pain and I might hit a vein and have to pull back and that I might mess it up, I became deathly terrified. And on the other side on the needle is my beautiful, brave wife that has been sticking herself with needles for the past few months in her stomach, so much that she is getting bruises on her stomach, but who is also deathly terrified of needles at the same time. So we get to the point where I have to insert this needle into her and I ask her countless times you want a countdown??? She keeps saying no I am good, just do it. I didn't tell her to after but I wanted the countdown, I needed something in my mind that said, its okay to stick your wife in the hip with a 1.5 inch needle. So after going through every dilemma in my head, I finally decided that I needed to help my wife who has been such a trooper through this whole process, and I went for it. Went it quite easily, drew back no blood, injected the meds, and pulled the needle out, put the gauze pad on, massaged the medicine around and voila, we were done! 1 down 3000 to go. But I thought about this after and I thought the team that we are on and typically I just make sure that we have the right music playing and that the drugs are mixed correctly but the hard part is typically done as soon as I pick up the camera to take the video. I am so glad that I get to be a part of the process again!!!
So the post title is the day in the life, and when you are a male that is sterile, you look at yourself different at first, believe me its okay, I did and it took a while to get past it but I truly am past that now. Probably because of my friends that allow me to steal their babies for hours and know that it soothes me as well as my spirit. As a male you know our responsibility is to ensure that your family is safe and secure and that you bring home the paychecks and you make the families. I guess I am a little different because for years I have told Stace that I would have no problem being the stay at home dad. Even when I worked as an Assistant Manager at Best Buy, I would constantly tell my employees that when I had kids, I would not do retail anymore. I love that Stace has found a job that can support us and will I probably say one day when we have kids, what was I thinking, probably but I don't care right now! I love my life right now and if we are lucky enough to make a baby out of this, boy I will be on cloud 9. If it doesn't work this time, well we have other times to continue and will it be hard, sure but we will get through it.
So now we get to participate evenly in our journey together again. I get to be 100% involved in the process again because I get to inject Stace with PIO now and it gets me involved more than the music and mixing. Funny how when we sat with the psychologist, she asked me how Stace was on hormones before and I joked and said cranky. She then said to us, well cranky can become bitchy really quick with IVF so are you ready to handle that. My response, I worked in retail for 15 years and work in an office of mostly female employees now, I think I am almost a genius now! No offense to the ladies out there, but hormones change your behaviors and I love you still but just gotta give us time to understand if this is the meds or we just messed up!
Its funny because the one thing I have realized about this whole process is the support that is out there for females, and there could easily be support for males, but it takes a lot for a male to open up and understand that life happens. But when you finally do open up and realize that you are in the journey together with your partner, it will make it that much more fun, and who knows maybe you might get lucky enough to allow your partner to trust you enough to stick a 1.5 in needle into her hip over and over and over! Bye bye!
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