Between A and B

Early in our relationship, Melissa and I were on a road trip, probably up to Boston where I attended film school, and we hit traffic. The likelihood of hitting traffic on a trip from New Jersey to Boston hovers somewhere in the area of 50 percent, increasing to 100 percent if you’re foolish enough to take I-95 the whole way. I hated traffic so much that I became obsessive about avoiding it. I researched and tried out various routes until I was sure I had the best way. I would leave only at a certain time of day, even if it meant dragging Melissa out of bed at 5:00 AM after a night out behaving like twenty-two year olds. And so we would depart, customized “I’ll outsmart not only other travelers but also the computer” MapQuest printout in-hand (this was in the days before Google maps and traffic alerts, of course).

Nevertheless, despite my best efforts and strategies, one day we hit an awful jam. I was enraged. It was a blow to my ego. I don’t hit traffic. I’m smarter than everyone else and figured this thing out. This does not happen to me. And there I was fuming, probably cursing, maybe yelling. It’s a miracle Melissa married me after seeing my traffic behavior. Watching me fly off the handle, she did probably the worst thing you can do to an irrational lunatic: she reasoned with me. “It’s just traffic. Why don’t you make the best of it?”

“Best of what? This is the worst possible thing that could be happening right now.”

“There’s probably an accident up ahead. Someone might be dead. We could be dead in an accident. Or hurt, or a lot of other more horrible places than traffic.”

“That’s just stupid.”

“You can’t spend your life being pissed off at things you can’t help.”

“Well I wanted to be there at 10:00 AM and now who knows when we’ll get there.”

“Life doesn’t stop when you leave Point A and start again when you get to Point B. All that space in between is still life. And you’d be a hell of a lot happier if you filled that space with something besides freaking out about when you’re going to get to Point B.”

Boom. Melissa, as she so often does, dropped knowledge. Sad to say, but I lived my life so obsessively by the clock, by an agenda, by what comes next, that I had never in twenty-two years looked at life like that. I was enlightened. I calmed down.

Do I still obsess about traffic? You’re goddamn right I do. I’m not going to sit here and pretend that I don’t still act, as Melissa so affectionately tells me, like “a whiny little bitch” in the heat of a traffic catastrophe (sometimes in Melissa’s battle between passionate feminism and North Jersey attitude, North Jersey wins). In the over ten years I’ve known her, however, I try to take her words to heart. If we’re stuck waiting for a table at a restaurant, or in a crazy long line at the store (who am I kidding, does anyone go to stores anymore? Amazon!), or counting down the days before an exciting vacation: Life exists between Point A and Point B. Embrace the journey.

We’ve been saying that to each other quite a bit over the past year.

Melissa and I are both planners. As our 30s approached, we watched friends having kids and we thought, “We’ll know when we’re ready.” As “ready” approached, we told people, “Oh, we won’t be like those crazy people who track ovulation and all that weird stuff. We’ll just stop not trying and when it happens, it happens.” But then we decided we were ready, Melissa went off of her birth control, and a month later we looked at each other and said, “All right baby, get here already.” Once we want something, we want it. But as it continued to not happen, we took a deep breath and remembered the mantra. Hell, when you’re first trying to have kids there’s a hell of a lot to embrace, but along the way, after three months, six months, OBGYN checks, urology appointments, and multiple semen analyses, it became more and more difficult.

Now it’s harder than ever. We’ve reached a new, major phase: the fertility clinic. The past few months have been a struggle of stress and frustration. We’ve been searching for an outlet, searching for meaning, searching for a way to embrace a part of the journey that leaves little to embrace (and little in your savings account). We came to realize that people don’t talk about infertility. People get pregnant, they make an announcement to the world, and they celebrate it. Guys are happy to point out if it only took a month or two of trying, but stories of pregnancies that took years and visits to the fertility clinic rarely leave peoples’ inner circles. This code of silence is even more prominent around male-factor infertility.

Why aren’t we talking? What can be gleaned, or gained, around a broader topic of infertility?

It’s time to find out.

A Dream Deferred

It was the dream I mourned the most when I heard the news. I'd taken the dream for granted, assumed it was a given. It was part of the master plan, the script I'd read and revised a thousand times, the movie emblazoned on the backs of my eyelids. We won't be part of the statistics, I'd tell myself. We live healthy lives. We eat right, exercise regularly, get our eight hours on most nights, use organic and all-natural products... and, of course, there was the dream. The one that doubt had not yet tainted.

The dream went a little like this: There'd be a twinge. A feeling. I can just tell. A stomach full of butterflies as I wait for the test results. The uncontainable excitement when I see the second line. Running to Bobby to shove the stick in his face so he can see for himself. We're going to be parents. We did it. Jumping on the bed, dancing, crying, plotting how we'll share the news with our family and friends. A boy or girl? What will we name it? A nursery to decorate! 

The first few months were fun in all the ways you'd expect trying for a baby to be fun: the planning, the daydreaming, the trying. The first negative test was upsetting, but only fleetingly. It's only the first month. Most people don't get pregnant that quickly. Onto the next! Two, three, four months went by and the excitement built, the hope never waned. At five months though, what was once a brief sadness of another negative test, another period, became a gut punch. It was around this time that I got the feeling that something wasn't right. Not quite wrong... but off. Despite all the studies that show many healthy couples take up to a year to conceive, I just knew. Something isn't right. The thought worried at the back of my brain with each failed cycle, but I forced myself to ignore it. Not us. It won't happen to us.

It was somewhere around the sixth or seventh month that we decided it was time to investigate. With the exception of a brief scare on my side that was the result of a doctor misinterpreting my hormone test results, all signs pointed to things working well in my reproductive system. I had even undergone an ultrasound months earlier, for unrelated reasons, the results of which led my OBGYN to assure me that I was "very fertile."

Relief.

Briefly.

The next step was for Bobby to see a urologist. His first semen analysis showed that all of his numbers (count, motility, volume, etc.) were at or above normal, except for one: morphology. Morphology has to do with the shape of sperm and, therefore, its ability to penetrate the egg. A normal morphology range is 4-14%, meaning that's the percentage of "normal" shaped sperm a man has to have to be considered fertile. Bobby's was 0%. He also had white blood cells present in his sample, which the doctor thought could be the cause of the morphology issue. He was put on a round of antibiotics and an anti-inflammatory to try to kick any underlying problems. We left with a plan, a follow-up appointment for six weeks later, and - outwardly, at least - hope. Recently, we admitted to each other that we both had a terrible, gnawing feeling from that point on. Some things you just know. And we knew, although neither of us said so, aloud, just yet. We put on our brave faces - for ourselves, for each other, and for the few people around us who knew what was going on - and followed the doctor's protocol. And we waited. Lots of waiting.

The next appointment with the urologist showed that nearly every single one of Bobby's numbers improved, except his morphology. Still 0%. But the doctor felt hopeful that, because the treatment had improved every other aspect of Bobby's sample, another round could move the needle on his morphology. More prescriptions. More brave faces. More waiting.

In December, right before a holiday trip Italy, we went back to the urologist to see if the second round of treatment worked. I had a pit in my stomach the whole night before and the morning leading up to the appointment. We had tried everything - medications, supplements, vitamins, dietary changes - and, despite my gut telling me otherwise, I found myself hopeful. We had even joked about how we could make our "miracle Christmas baby" on our trip. Bobby produced his sample, and we waited... and waited. Infertility, which no one tells you, ever, anywhere, requires more patience than you ever thought you could muster. Finally we sat down with the doctor.

Every single number improved.

Except morphology.

0%.

We were given the diagnosis of male-factor infertility that left us with no option but IVF with ICSI (an additional procedure in which the sperm is injected directly into the egg before being transferred back into the uterus). We were, officially, a statistic. We were infertile. And so, off to the fertility specialists we go.

Hearing the i-word is devastating for so many reasons. There's the fear that you may never have a child of your own, made with your DNA. I wonder if I'll ever get to see what our child would look like, sound like, be like. I fear that I'll never get to experience pregnancy and delivery. I worried then, and still do now, about how Bobby was taking the news; seeing the person you love most in the world in pain, especially when there's nothing you can do about it, is excruciating (but more on that another time). And then there was the dream. It seems trivial to someone who hasn't experienced it, but knowing my pregnancy journey wouldn't be anything like I envisioned is gut-wrenching. Even if I do get pregnant with IVF, all the fun and romance has been zapped from the entire experience. It's now going to be so clinical, involving doctors, nurses, technicians, anesthesiologists, coordinators, insurance companies, pharmacies, and a million other people who don't belong in our bed. And there is no guarantee that, even after all that, we'll end up with a baby. That was the day I lost the dream. And I cried for so many reasons, but also for the dream.

The thing that no one tells you about infertility is how incredibly isolating it can be. There's a certain stigma with infertility, even now, that keeps those who experience it always on the outside. No matter how many listening ears you have, unless those people have experienced it themselves, they simply can't understand how it feels. At some point, you begin to feel like your infertility is a burden to everyone around you, no matter how wonderful, supportive, and good-intentioned they are or what they say to the contrary. You don't want to upset your parents, who will be upset simply because a child's pain is the parent's pain, too. You don't want your friends to feel awkward or unsure of how to respond. If your partner is the one with the infertility diagnosis, you don't want them to feel responsible. This deeply emotional experience devolves into a series of strictly medical and progress updates devoid of any emotion at all. And once you begin to have trouble, it feels like everyone around you is suddenly getting pregnant. You don't want to diminish their joy with your pain, so you smile, and tell them how happy you are - and you are happy for them. You're just also devastated for yourself.

And you feel so very isolated.

That's where we are today. Alone, but together in our loneliness, which you come to find is something incredibly special, in a way. The only silver lining in this process so far has been that it has, in so many weird and unexpected ways, brought Bobby and me closer. It's proven to me that infertility sucks (like, big time), but there's no other man in the entire universe that I could go through something like this with. So there's that. And the sadness and loneliness, too, but love has a way of outshining them both just when you need it most. Love will get us through this, whatever the outcome.