I’ve never been the type to publicly announce my New Year’s resolutions, which if I’m being quite honest, most years I’ve never fully committed to one. I’m usually one of “those” who vow to lose 20 pounds but barely make it to the 5 pound mark before I find myself making excuses like “it’s too expensive to eat healthy” or “it’s too cold to get out to go to the gym.” Honestly, I don’t see the point. If I want to lose weight or make changes in my life, why would I wait until January 1st to start? I feel the same way about Valentine’s Day. Why would I show my husband I love him just on February 14th with cheesy cards and expensive heart-shaped Reese’s cups? I’m not much for clichés. They’re annoying. However, since embarking on this infertility journey, I’ve realized I need to set short term goals for myself. It’s something I’ve recently started doing to feel a little bit of self-worth. They’re really simple goals like washing all the laundry before Sunday night, reading three chapters of my latest book, or taking down all of the Christmas decorations before going back to work. It’s small, everyday things, but it’s what helps remind me to take one day at a time.
Since my first blog post, I have experienced a rollercoaster of emotions. Looking back, there have been so many changes in such a short time. In the beginning, I was scared of being so open with our journey. I didn’t know what to expect from people once the walls were down. Honestly, before sharing our infertility journey, I never knew the toll infertility took you on. Some people are private, and remain private through their struggles, so most of time, I was completely unaware of pain they were hiding. Just like many people, my biggest fear is the fear of the unknown. I didn’t know how people would react. However, I never could’ve imagined that infertility would bring us to the overwhelming amount of love and support that Augie and I have received. After all the doctor’s appointments and the diagnoses, I felt dazed and terrified. Despite all the love, well wishes, and constant prayers I still felt empty. A 45-minute phone conversation with one of my aunts helped put these feelings into words. It’s like I can be in a room full of people who love and care about me, but still fill so utterly alone. I know it sounds awful, but through all of this, something else I have learned is to not be so worried about what other people think of me or how my decisions make them feel. Augie and I will have to make some very serious decisions in this New Year. At first, thoughts crossed my mind like, “I wonder what people will think if they know the IVF route we choose to take” or “What if people judge us for choosing sperm donation or adopting a baby outside of our race.” I finally realize this isn’t about other people. I’ve always been so worried about other people’s opinions and feelings, but then I finally realized it wasn’t about anyone but Augie and me. You will never know these feelings if you have never experienced infertility. Although, I have NEVER once felt anything but love and support from our family and closest friends, these were still self-conscious feelings that I couldn’t suppress. I feel that through this blog, and the constant love and support from my family, friends, and Sarah’s Laughter group, I have learned how to manage these unwanted feelings.
Just since this summer, there have been so many plot twists in our journey. In a sense, I feel lucky because in some infertility cases, it takes couples years to just get to the point where Augie and I are at this moment. After Augie’s Azoospermia diagnosis, we scheduled a testicular biopsy with a urologist recommended by Dr. Webster (who we have recently found out is retiring the first of the year). December 18th, Augie went to the urologist to have the procedure to determine if there were any viable sperm that could be found on his testicular wall. Since my goal is to be completely transparent with our journey, this has been the absolute worst part of it, thus far. He and I were both a nervous wreck the night before and the morning of. Augie shows his emotions, just as any other man would, by completely shutting down. He didn’t want to talk about it. As we were preparing to leave, I tried starting up conversations, but was told to be quiet and to just finish fixing my hair. I knew I would need someone to come along with us just to be there in case Augie had a weird reaction to any of the medications, or if I needed someone to calm me down once I was kicked out of the procedure room. Anyone who knows me knows that my ability to take care of people when they are sick isn’t exactly the most nurturing. I don’t like to see people in any kind of pain, so I freeze up and feel like I can’t do anything to help them. I had all of these thoughts racing through my head weeks before, so, I asked my SIL to accompany me because I knew I would be a basket case, which my predictions proved themselves to be correct. I thought I would able to be strong for Augie since he has been the rock through every appointment, every call back from a doctor’s office, and every uncontrollable crying session. I thought I held it together until we walked to the back and both realized this procedure was actually happening. The nurse escorted us to the procedure room (after the Valium and two Lora tabs started to show themselves) to prepare for the procedure, and finally all those fears he’d be holding back surfaced. He told me how he felt. For those of you who have no idea what a testicular biopsy is, YouTube it, you will forever respect my husband and all the other men out there who have this dreaded procedure done. He explained how he didn’t want to go through with it. He verbalized how scared he was. Heartbroken, I told him I wasn’t going to make him do anything he didn’t want to do. He went on saying that he knew he had to go through with it because he couldn’t live the rest of his life just not knowing. He couldn’t do that to me. Think about it, if he would’ve left before the procedure, we would have never known if there is even a possibility for us to have a biological baby. I truly believe this experience has brought us closer together as a couple. We thought we were strong together before, but we had no idea what we were capable of when it comes to expanding our family. In the LSU-themed waiting room, we broke down together. We showed our fears and reminded ourselves of the vow we made to each other in the beginning. We will do whatever it takes to become parents. After the procedure was over, Augie waddled out behind the nurse. She pulled me to the side, looked me straight in the eyes and said, “Okay Mama, this was probably one of the toughest procedures I’ve seen in the 12 years I’ve been doing this. He’s in a lot of pain and is going to need a lot of TLC.” I looked past her and saw my husband fighting back the pain. As if I didn’t cry enough already that morning, I checked him out behind blankets of tears and walked him out to the car and never looked back.
Augie and I began this journey telling ourselves we would be as aggressive as possible, even if that meant putting our bodies through the ringer. To describe our weekend delicately, it was tough. Augie was in a lot of pain, but has since recovered nicely. He continuously says, “make sure you add that is was the worst pain I’ve ever experienced in my life.” It was hard for me to see him suffering, especially because it’s something that I asked him to do. However, a part of me is selfishly grateful because I know that we will experience our own share of pain throughout the process. The way I see it is we can now truly empathize with one another when it comes to painful procedures in regards to infertility. During the IVF process, there are many procedures that the female has to undergo that cause a lot of physical and emotional pain.
The next appointment we have scheduled is with the same urologist. However, this time no one has to get cut on, and there will be no Valium involved. On January 4th, we meet to discuss the results of the biopsy. On that day we will be faced with two options: IVF with our sperm and egg or what we have decided to call our “Plan B.” If the results come back showing that Augie has viable sperm, we have decided to proceed with IVF. This is a long process, and we will be more than ready to tackle it together. However, if the results aren’t in our favor we will open the doors to begin exploring other options. We have looked into adoption and recently have discussed sperm donation or embryo adoption. We have decided to put the research on these options on hold until we know more about the results. We don’t want to stretch our focus too far, simply because we can’t handle the fear. So, this year, I’m going to set a long-term goal. Not following the qualifications of a New Year’s resolution, but something that I’m going to do throughout 2016. No, it’s not to have a baby, although that would be ideal. I am not naïve or stupid. However, my goal for 2016 is to remain hopeful. I know I will have bad days, and I know I will still cry uncontrollably, but I will not lose hope. Alas, we remain in limbo but are still on the pursuit of parenthood.
Since my first blog post, I have experienced a rollercoaster of emotions. Looking back, there have been so many changes in such a short time. In the beginning, I was scared of being so open with our journey. I didn’t know what to expect from people once the walls were down. Honestly, before sharing our infertility journey, I never knew the toll infertility took you on. Some people are private, and remain private through their struggles, so most of time, I was completely unaware of pain they were hiding. Just like many people, my biggest fear is the fear of the unknown. I didn’t know how people would react. However, I never could’ve imagined that infertility would bring us to the overwhelming amount of love and support that Augie and I have received. After all the doctor’s appointments and the diagnoses, I felt dazed and terrified. Despite all the love, well wishes, and constant prayers I still felt empty. A 45-minute phone conversation with one of my aunts helped put these feelings into words. It’s like I can be in a room full of people who love and care about me, but still fill so utterly alone. I know it sounds awful, but through all of this, something else I have learned is to not be so worried about what other people think of me or how my decisions make them feel. Augie and I will have to make some very serious decisions in this New Year. At first, thoughts crossed my mind like, “I wonder what people will think if they know the IVF route we choose to take” or “What if people judge us for choosing sperm donation or adopting a baby outside of our race.” I finally realize this isn’t about other people. I’ve always been so worried about other people’s opinions and feelings, but then I finally realized it wasn’t about anyone but Augie and me. You will never know these feelings if you have never experienced infertility. Although, I have NEVER once felt anything but love and support from our family and closest friends, these were still self-conscious feelings that I couldn’t suppress. I feel that through this blog, and the constant love and support from my family, friends, and Sarah’s Laughter group, I have learned how to manage these unwanted feelings.
Just since this summer, there have been so many plot twists in our journey. In a sense, I feel lucky because in some infertility cases, it takes couples years to just get to the point where Augie and I are at this moment. After Augie’s Azoospermia diagnosis, we scheduled a testicular biopsy with a urologist recommended by Dr. Webster (who we have recently found out is retiring the first of the year). December 18th, Augie went to the urologist to have the procedure to determine if there were any viable sperm that could be found on his testicular wall. Since my goal is to be completely transparent with our journey, this has been the absolute worst part of it, thus far. He and I were both a nervous wreck the night before and the morning of. Augie shows his emotions, just as any other man would, by completely shutting down. He didn’t want to talk about it. As we were preparing to leave, I tried starting up conversations, but was told to be quiet and to just finish fixing my hair. I knew I would need someone to come along with us just to be there in case Augie had a weird reaction to any of the medications, or if I needed someone to calm me down once I was kicked out of the procedure room. Anyone who knows me knows that my ability to take care of people when they are sick isn’t exactly the most nurturing. I don’t like to see people in any kind of pain, so I freeze up and feel like I can’t do anything to help them. I had all of these thoughts racing through my head weeks before, so, I asked my SIL to accompany me because I knew I would be a basket case, which my predictions proved themselves to be correct. I thought I would able to be strong for Augie since he has been the rock through every appointment, every call back from a doctor’s office, and every uncontrollable crying session. I thought I held it together until we walked to the back and both realized this procedure was actually happening. The nurse escorted us to the procedure room (after the Valium and two Lora tabs started to show themselves) to prepare for the procedure, and finally all those fears he’d be holding back surfaced. He told me how he felt. For those of you who have no idea what a testicular biopsy is, YouTube it, you will forever respect my husband and all the other men out there who have this dreaded procedure done. He explained how he didn’t want to go through with it. He verbalized how scared he was. Heartbroken, I told him I wasn’t going to make him do anything he didn’t want to do. He went on saying that he knew he had to go through with it because he couldn’t live the rest of his life just not knowing. He couldn’t do that to me. Think about it, if he would’ve left before the procedure, we would have never known if there is even a possibility for us to have a biological baby. I truly believe this experience has brought us closer together as a couple. We thought we were strong together before, but we had no idea what we were capable of when it comes to expanding our family. In the LSU-themed waiting room, we broke down together. We showed our fears and reminded ourselves of the vow we made to each other in the beginning. We will do whatever it takes to become parents. After the procedure was over, Augie waddled out behind the nurse. She pulled me to the side, looked me straight in the eyes and said, “Okay Mama, this was probably one of the toughest procedures I’ve seen in the 12 years I’ve been doing this. He’s in a lot of pain and is going to need a lot of TLC.” I looked past her and saw my husband fighting back the pain. As if I didn’t cry enough already that morning, I checked him out behind blankets of tears and walked him out to the car and never looked back.
Augie and I began this journey telling ourselves we would be as aggressive as possible, even if that meant putting our bodies through the ringer. To describe our weekend delicately, it was tough. Augie was in a lot of pain, but has since recovered nicely. He continuously says, “make sure you add that is was the worst pain I’ve ever experienced in my life.” It was hard for me to see him suffering, especially because it’s something that I asked him to do. However, a part of me is selfishly grateful because I know that we will experience our own share of pain throughout the process. The way I see it is we can now truly empathize with one another when it comes to painful procedures in regards to infertility. During the IVF process, there are many procedures that the female has to undergo that cause a lot of physical and emotional pain.
The next appointment we have scheduled is with the same urologist. However, this time no one has to get cut on, and there will be no Valium involved. On January 4th, we meet to discuss the results of the biopsy. On that day we will be faced with two options: IVF with our sperm and egg or what we have decided to call our “Plan B.” If the results come back showing that Augie has viable sperm, we have decided to proceed with IVF. This is a long process, and we will be more than ready to tackle it together. However, if the results aren’t in our favor we will open the doors to begin exploring other options. We have looked into adoption and recently have discussed sperm donation or embryo adoption. We have decided to put the research on these options on hold until we know more about the results. We don’t want to stretch our focus too far, simply because we can’t handle the fear. So, this year, I’m going to set a long-term goal. Not following the qualifications of a New Year’s resolution, but something that I’m going to do throughout 2016. No, it’s not to have a baby, although that would be ideal. I am not naïve or stupid. However, my goal for 2016 is to remain hopeful. I know I will have bad days, and I know I will still cry uncontrollably, but I will not lose hope. Alas, we remain in limbo but are still on the pursuit of parenthood.