Some people have children. We don’t. We were married later in life than either of us expected. Though if we’d met sooner, there is little chance we would have noticed each other.
So we chose not to stop the potential for having children after getting married.
Seriously. The number of condoms we have successfully used is one. She’s never used an IUD or birth control pill.
And no children.
As people who like to think we understand science, we figured “Two healthy people will eventually make a baby.” This assumption has so far proven untrue.
About 18 months ago, we started to investigate why.
Tests revealed I had low count, morphology, and movement, the unholy triumvirate of impacts on child-wanting men. Her test suggested she was doing pretty good.
So we investigated fixes for me. Our best chance was a surgery to remove varicoceles from the veins in my sack that were keeping temperatures too high for useful sperm to develop.
I went under the knife in October. In January, we discovered it hadn’t really changed much. Doctor said things could get better for up to a year. Subsequent tests haven’t revealed much progress.
So I’ve done what I can. Despite the problem being mine (or mostly with me), there isn’t much more we can do at our ages and expect an outcome different from what we’ve gotten.
So into the serious stuff (and sacrifices for her).
At our ages (me 32 and her 34), the best viable (and most expensive) option is IVF. At the basic level, she
- gets drugs that put her monthly cycle on a plan that the doctors can control
- more drugs to increase egg production for the month
- sore ovaries, because EACH is producing 5-10x the number it should
- an ultrasound, combined with an egg retrieval device snaked from outside her body to the ovaries, to collect viable eggs
- 5 days of waiting on pins and needles
- another procedure and invasion of her intimate spaces to put viable blastocysts back in her
- waiting and finger crossing that one or two will implant and begin a pregnancy
All of that before starting what other women deal with as part of a natural pregnancy.
For a woman who prefers to keep to herself, I can’t imagine sacrificing much more to become a mother.
Things of course don’t end there, but this entry does.