I am broken, too.

We were on vacation in Oregon when the phone calls started.  It felt a bit like being repeatedly pummeled in a boxing ring with an opponent who outweighs you by fifty pounds.

Brian has no FSH or LH hormones due to his cancer as a baby, and, even with fertility meds, has zero likelihood of ever producing a child. “Complete testicular failure” they called it. 

I am a carrier for Cystic Fibrosis. There will always be a chance that I could have a baby with CF, even using a donor, because they are unable to screen for every possible mutation.

My blood work came back showing my low “ovarian reserve.” This is a number between 1-5 that rates how many eggs you have left remaining based on your age, etc.  I came in at 0.48.  I could tell by the surprise in Jennifer’s (Dr. Slater’s nurse) voice that she was stunned by the results as well.  By all accounts I am perfectly healthy. I have regular cycles and always have. However, my likelihood of having a baby is very small. 

So, the options for me include an ever-increasing drug cocktail of several different fertility meds and multiple ultrasounds every month to see if they worked. Also, we still had the daunting task of deciding on a donor and then face the realities of the risk of having a CF child. 

The cost became the deciding factor. All of the drugs and procedures would be enormously expensive-and it might not work. If we were going to go to that much trouble- if we were going to put my body through all of that- we wanted a guarantee. 

Later on, it became about more than the money. How do we justify spending all of that money on a pregnancy? There are millions of orphans around the world in need of homes and parents who love them. We began to feel very convicted about pursuing infertility treatments.

Based on all of this, we closed the door on a pregnancy for me. When I told my mom, I told her that we would not be having a baby because I was broken, too.

Idaho Center for Reproductive Medicine

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.

Infertility

We stood in my classroom, with the door uncharacteristically shut, right before the last hour of the day. My husband looked at me with a pained expression creasing the corners of his mouth and eyes and blurted it out, as usual not mincing any words.

“We got the results back. There’s nothing. No sperm. I am completely sterile. The doctor said it was the cancer.”

In the span of a few seconds, my world imploded. All the infinite possibilities of our future family were sucked in and lodged somewhere below my heart. We had been waiting for the results of the semen analysis for several days. It was really a precautionary step before we actively started trying to get pregnant. The advice of several friends, who had been through the trials of infertility themselves, prompted Brian to complete the pre-emptive analysis because of his cancer treatments as child. They always said there was a chance he could not have kids. But knowing that there is a possibility is very different than facing the reality.  My reality was looking at me, waiting for my response.

My immediate reaction was anger. The hallway was filled with the sounds of our impatient students waiting to be greeted for the last class of the day. I was appalled that he would drop this bomb on me before I had to teach a class.

“YOU ARE TELLING ME THIS NOW??” 

He said simply, “I couldn’t be the only one who knew. I had to tell you.”

I instantly felt terrible. He had to teach a class, too. Working in the same building- right across the hall- means that you can talk if you need to. Of course he shouldn’t face it alone. We both teared up and embraced briefly, but had to let go almost immediately. The kiddos in the hall were getting restive, more than a few curious faces were peering in my window, and the bell was about to ring. I took a deep breath and told myself to pull it together.  I picked up the fractured pieces of my dreams- here and there a soft baby with blond hair, one with my husband’s brown eyes, over there a little fist in the tiny image of Brian’s hand – and hid them as deep as I could so that I could get through teaching my next class.

One of the few drawbacks to teaching at a school that is more like a family is that your students know when something is up. They knew something was wrong; but I put on my best smile and greeted my freshmen with enthusiasm. Fake it until you feel it, right? We delved back into Homer’s  Aeneid, and I survived the next fifty minutes without collapsing into a sobbing puddle. 

At the end of the day, I waded out to my car amid the usual choruses of goodbyes from students and co-workers. They sounded far-off, as if I were underwater. I left without Brian. We had driven separately to school because he supervises an after school drum corps. I climbed into my car and immediately let out the huge, choking sobs that had threatened to overwhelm me earlier and I rested my head on the steering wheel. 

But I couldn’t fall apart quite yet. Somewhere in my mind, a reminder was sounding. Oh, yes- we needed dog food. Both of my huge dogs waiting at home were completely out of food. I knew I had to go to the grocery store today after school. I just hadn’t planned on this news. So, I buried my feelings once more and drove to the store. 

As I entered the store, I came across a display of pink and white cards, balloons, and flowers. “Say thank you to your mother.”   “ Happy Mother’s Day, Mom!” I read the titles that leapt out at me like accusations.

Not you. 

You are not a mother. 

Each one hit me like a smack in the face. I will never be a mother. I will never have my husband’s baby. Brian will never watch my belly swell with his child.  His children will never give me mother’s day flowers.  

Apparently, I learned the week of mother’s day that I would not be a mother.

Not exactly what I was prepared to deal with when I entered Fred Meyers. I grabbed a cart and steered it slowly, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other. I meant to get the groceries I needed, but found myself staring at all the families around me. I never noticed how many women there are with babies and small children.  They looked as they always had. Some looked harried and hassled by the young ones in tow. Others slowly meandered the aisles with a sleeping baby in the cart, happy to have a brief respite. Some of the kids were cute and others not so much. It was as it always has been. Except not. 

Now there was no possibility. No maybe. No someday. This would never be me. I will always push my cart alone.

When I get home, Brian is still at work. I proceed through the mechanisms of the day-to day needs of my small fur family. I greet and feed my dogs. I water the flowers and the garden that we have recently planted for the season. I start dinner. It seems that despite my childlessness, I still have many things that demand my care. In retrospect, I am grateful for this. I cannot imagine having nothing and no one who needed me.

When he gets home, we sit on the couch and cry together for a long time.  Where do we go from here?