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Babies

Blame it on the drugs

I have felt really down the last couple or weeks. I lack energy and I am not as excited about the things I love.

Is it depression? Potentially. I’ve been there before.

Is the birth control I’m taking for IVF making me feel this way? Potentially, I’ve never taken it before so I don’t really know how my body reacts to it.Is it being stuck at my house unable to see friends and family? Potentially. I don’t have any children of my own and the closest I get are my nieces and nephews. We’ve had to miss a lot of birthdays this past month. Not to mention the hugs and snuggles.

Or perhaps it’s the variable spring weather that keeps me inside instead of being able to go out and work in my yard.

In reality it’s easiest to blame the drugs, after all moodiness and irritability are some of the potential side effects. However, these, plus a hundred other little things, are all confounding factors that could be contributing to my overall mood. I can embrace it as the way I should feel or I can get out of bed and try and do something about it.

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Sometimes you have no idea

We started walking down a path this week. A path we were interested in investigating and a path we were 100% sure we were going to be on.

We kept walking down it. Doing each next logical step and testing how it felt.

We (still) looked back, wondering how specific things would work out down other paths and how loose ends that would end up breaking would be tied if we went down this path.

I still don’t have answers. I’m not even sure this path is Right.

But sometimes you don’t know. Sometimes you have no idea. Sometimes a few steps in the dark still isn’t enough to illuminate the way.

Sometimes even doing a big scary thing on the path isn’t enough to confirm it’s right.

Sometimes you still look back. Almost always you want solid confirmation it’s Right.

That doesn’t always come.

Sometimes it’s the little things that support the path.

Sometimes it’s finding the right guide. Sometimes it’s a complete (seeming, but not actual) coincidence that causes you to take a step you wouldn’t have otherwise.

I honestly don’t know whether this path is the path I should be one. But when I saw similar divergences in the past and started down them, the path turned out far better than I ever expected.

God is in the details. The way an hour makes a difference in choices. The right finger movement, even when it’s not the normal one. The people you meet. The place you live.

It’s not perfect, always. But growth doesn’t come in sure moments, and growth doesn’t come when you only lift what you already know you can.

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Babies

IVF and Covid-19

We met with our plan of care nurse yesterday. We’ve had the appointment since before things really started to get crazy. We practiced social distancing and had the conversation over the phone.

We discussed the paperwork to fill out, FAQ’s, the schedule, and all of the different medications I’ll be taking and when. It was overwhelming to say the least.

They are unable to do any elective procedures right now but they want us to continue like this worldwide pandemic will be over by May. So she called in our prescriptions to a pharmacy for us to pick up. As well as called a speciality pharmacy to get the fertility drugs. The specialty pharmacy called us within a few minutes of being off the phone with the nurse and told us each of the drugs we will be receiving and how much each costs for a total of almost $3,000 (and that’s with a discount!). The fertility drugs should arrive today in the mail.

This is all happening very fast for something that isn’t happening.

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Babies

Being a dad

In my late teens/early twenties, I figured I get married some time between 21-24, and have children relatively quick thereafter.

Neither of those happened.

Married at 28, no kids at 32.

Jordan wrote about some of her feelings in Hard Heart, and although mine are quite different, I feel some things similarly.

I’m over-competent. I do most things better than most people. And I do some things at such a high level I don’t even know how to coach incompetent people how to do it better because some of what I do is intuitive.

Most non-parents probably feel they would be better parents than others they see.

I feel this pretty frequently. However, I am also aware I have zero experience, so “I would do ____ differently” doesn’t really cut it.

So I’ve wanted to be a dad for a long time.

Having it not happen hasn’t been that hard. Dating for a long time without getting married taught me that it’s ok for things to take a long time, and I shouldn’t be overly worried about things not happening in my timeline.

But that doesn’t mean when I see a newborn I am not overcome with “that’s cute. I want one.”

Or when I see a toddler, “I’d like to have one of those around, and try to see the world through their eyes” (even if I have no idea how to understand anything they attempt to say).

There are similar lines that I have for children, youth, and teens, too.

A teen in my house is likely to be a formidable thing. Two smart parents, one that relies heavily on logic and reasoning to get things done. Combine that with the un-reason of teenage hormones, and Jordan and I might meet our match.

But one day we might be able to have a deep conversation with a creature we made that has learned to think and wipe it’s own butt (this is why a dog will always be inferior to actual children).

So am I ready for the challenge of fatherhood? No, not at all. But am I willing to deal with it? Yes.

The late nights. The lack of sleep. The crazy world we apparently live in. Sure. Let’s go.

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Babies

Moneys

IVF isn’t cheap. For each cycle (period reset to one transfer of viable embryos), the following may be involved

  • $9,800 for the main stuff provided by the office, start to finish
  • $3,000-7,000 for drugs, depending on her body and needs
  • $1,000 for miscellaneous costs
  • $500-$2,500 optional testing, depending on couple’s susceptibility to genetic deformities

This is all before normal pregnancy costs. So you can understand why many couples choose to only do IVF once.

They offered us a few other options:

  • Pay ~$20k for two cycles to guarantee a you bring home a baby or you get 50% back
  • ~$35k for three cycles to guarantee a baby or 100% back

We really don’t have much interest in those two options. The incentives on the “insurance company” (for lack of better terms) don’t seem to line up with ours.

We want children. Plural. “Bring home a baby” seems to provide the option that they get paid two cycles worth of work for one cycle success. And their guarantee is based on medical criteria, which are unknown to us, but we know we’re approved.

So those criteria could be anything. Jordan is a healthy woman. She makes eggs consistently, and a “healthy egg-producing woman” could be the criteria for approval. Because a woman who can produce many eggs has a MUCH higher chance of having a baby than on who does not, thereby statistically solidifying the financial success of the insurance company.

So we’re going to go one cycle at a time. We’re going to rely on the fact the lab worker can accurately find a sperm in the sample and plant it in each of the eggs. And we’re going to assume Jordan can create 8+ in the cycle, which means we may have some behind.

If those assumptions aren’t true, we’ll have to re-think our approach.

However, if they are true and we have viable leftover eggs after the first transition, then we’ll freeze the eggs for $500/year and come back 12-20 months later for a second transfer ($2,900 + $500-1000 in drugs to prepare for transfer).

We think we’re playing the numbers.

If both transfers are successful, and we have multiple children, and there are still viable embryos left, then we’re in a bit of an unknown area, because we don’t want to leave any viable ones in the freezer.

So for now, about all we can do about that is let go of control, and let God guide the process.

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Babies

Sacrifices

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.

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Babies

Hard Heart

We’ve gone to specialits.

We’ve been poked and prodded.

My husband had surgery.

We’ve fasted and prayed.

We’ve shed tears (mostly me).

And we’ve still not been able to have children.

I feel so alone in this. I have felt alone since we moved to PG. I don’t feel like I fit in because I don’t belong to the “mom club”. I really don’t know how to handle other people’s children because I don’t have any of my own.

At the start of the new year it seemed like every week at church someone was having a baby blessed. And for one reason or another we ended right up front in full view. I silently cried through the whole thing. Not because I wasn’t happy for them, but because of the loneliness and the absence of the blessing I’ve prayed for.

So I began to close my heart to the pain I was feeling. I wouldn’t listen when other babies were being blessed and instead went elsewhere in my mind. I just wanted to shut it all out. When I would see a kid acting out or hear one crying I’d tell myself how happy I was to not have to deal with that. I began to tell myself how lucky I was to not have kids because we could travel, spend our money the way we wanted, spend our time the way we wanted, etc.

And little by little my heart closed.

We decided to go back to a fertility doctor to start IVF (IUI won’t likely be successful in our situation) and it doesn’t seem real. It doesn’t feel like we could have a child of our own.

Logically, if we go through the steps and all goes well, we’ll bring home a baby.

But emotionally I am closed off and unable to feel the connection. I don’t want to feel the pain.

I need to allow myself to hope. To open up. To allow myself to be vulnerable to the pain of loss that may come. Pain is not bad, it’s uncomfortable to be sure, but it can also make the success so much sweeter.