Once we found out that Brian was unable to have children, my
first question became “For what exactly are we grieving?” I wanted to know what we were giving up.
Were we grieving for the inability to have his child or for the ability to have
children at all? Giving up the entire
option of having a family seemed a much larger pill to swallow at the time. So,
what were we going to do next? Adopt?
Not have children? Use donor sperm? The myriad of options was overwhelming,
particularly for my husband. There were no options for him. He would never
father a child. Later, he honestly admitted that this revelation took the steam
out of him. His passion to start a family fled with the knowledge that this
family would not be his.
The direction of our life changed course almost immediately.
We found ourselves making phone calls to fertility doctors while trying to
finish up the school year. What was supposed to be a summer spent trying to get
pregnant the old fashioned way became a spring spent informing our family that
we could not have kids. I felt the need to keep things to ourselves, but Brian
was more open.
After some discussion, we made an appointment at the Idaho
Center for Reproductive Medicine. A friend of ours had been to see them for her
infertility treatments and they came highly recommended. Also, they are the
only nationally certified reproductive endocrinology and infertility center
in Idaho. We scheduled the consultation appointment for as soon as we
could get in. It was really, in our minds, an appointment for information. What
were our options? I was perfectly healthy and I became more and more attracted
to the idea of using donor sperm to get pregnant. I was not ready to give up a
pregnancy. I wanted all that comes with it. I wanted to get fat and happy and
have my husband buy me weird foods in the middle of the night and watch my
belly grow. I figured that we could bond with the baby no problem.
My mother is adopted and so are two of her siblings. My
step-dad raised me from the time I was seven. I am used to a non-traditional
family. My husband, on the other hand, is not. He was uncomfortable with the
idea of donor sperm from the start. He
felt serious qualms about having a child that would be mine and not his.
However, I think he wanted to make me happy and we feel strongly about making
informed decisions. So, we did some research into the cost and made the
appointment at ICRM.
Our consultation took over three hours. First, let me say
that we were extremely impressed with the staff and doctors at ICRM. They were
kind and helpful and knowledgeable. We met with Dr. Slater and her nurse, the
financial advisors, the genetic counselor, the blood ladies, and pretty much
everyone else. We underwent medical history evaluations and went through our
options for IVF,IUI, fertility medications,
counseling, and genetic screening. I had my first ultrasound as well. (Brian’s
face as he realized what a vaginal ultrasound requires was priceless, by
the way.) My ultrasound revealed a lower number of eggs on my ovaries than
expected, but Dr. Slater had full confidence that I could get pregnant using a
donor. I had blood work done for infectious disease and a genetic screening for
Cystic Fibrosis and Muscular Atrophy. Because my mother is adopted, I have
little known medical history and we figured that knowledge would be valuable. We
exited the office with arms filled with brochures on sperm banks, financial
institutions who offer loans, family counselors, and an enormous bag of
pre-natal vitamins.
Overall, we left feeling armed with lots of new knowledge. However,
we were left with the overwhelming feeling that we were disappearing into the
rabbit hole. The ICRM office is filled with bulletin boards of smiling babies. Success
stories of families. The lobby is filled with anxious couples hoping to get
that lucky. Even though we were going to
get the information that we needed to make an informed decision about our next
step, we left feeling like we were joining this desperate quest of infertile
couples to have a child. Were we really going to do this?
Over the next two weeks, the results of our blood work and
my genetic screening came back.
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