Back pain

A good deal of my life, right now, is focused on infertility. Infertility is not one of the things you think about when you're in high school or college and considering what you future might hold. To be perfectly honest, when you’re 17, it sounds like a blessing. Those videos you watched in sex education class in 9^th grade made it seem like your girlfriend could become pregnant just by standing in the same room with you. So the thought of not getting her pregnant was not something that kept you awake at nights.

So then you meet the right girl and you have similar career goals and family goals and you get married. And though you both want to have kids, you also know it’s “NOT THE RIGHT TIME”. (Say this in the VOICE OF GOD.) So she goes on “the pill”. Now, if you have good health insurance, “the pill” costs $10 a month, because that’s your copay. However, if you don’t have insurance, it costs approximately as much as buying a new Ford Escort. (My wife tells me this is untrue; that it only costs $30 a month, but it sure seemed like a lot when we were first married.) But that’s okay, because you don’t actually want a new Escort, but you definitely want to make sure you don’t get pregnant right then. So you eat lots of Ramen noodles, because that’s all you can afford after paying for birth control, and you continue with your life.

And then, after a few years of having everyone you know tell you “You can never AFFORD to have kids, you just HAVE them!”, you decide that it might be time to think about getting pregnant. This is a very major step, because the truth is, you don’t feel like an adult yet. Though you badly want to have kids, the sooner the better, the thought of having a little helpless person depending on you for everything, or else it will DIE, does not put you at ease, because the only plant in your house that you haven’t killed is the Christmas Cactus your high school librarian gave you as a graduation present, and that’s only because it doesn’t mind if you only water it every 3 months or so. And there have STILL been a couple close calls. But, thankfully, you married someone smarter than you are, and you know that even if you forget that you have a baby for a month or two, (HEY, it’s basketball season! My brain space is completely taken up by rebounds per game and Western Conference injury reports! I can’t remember EVERYTHING!) she will, in all likelihood, remember to feed the baby. (Of course I don't actually think I'd forget I have a child. I've never gone more than a week with out feeding the cats.)

So you start “trying”.

Warning! The rest of this column contains mention of SEX. If you are uncomfortable with the topic of SEX, DO NOT read on. If you are in any way related to me, consider whether or not this is a mental picture you want to be saddled with for the rest of your life.

Now, “trying” to get pregnant is not, as chores go, too bad. It involves, contrary to what you may have believed about a stork, SEX. I, for one, am completely in favor of almost anything that involves sex, so I was wholly supportive of this “trying” business. So we tried. (S.A. has expressed concern that you, faithful reader, with think I am a neanderthal who has no interest in actually having children and undertook this project only as a means by which to fool around. This is definitely not true. I love kids and I badly want kids. I cannot wait to teach my daughters to play softball and my sons to avoid ever cleaning bathrooms by convincing women that we can't SEE the poop that's smeared on the side of the toilet. I really want kids, but let's be honest. THe sex thing is a pretty nice perk.) And then we tried some more. And then we tried a little more. And after about 6 months, we decided that we might want to talk to a doctor, because we still weren’t pregnant. We assumed that was not normal, because we knew teenagers who had gotten pregnant, and we were pretty sure they weren’t “trying”.

And so begins the saga of infertility. When you tell a doctor that you've been "trying" for 6 months and you're still not pregnant, they tell you that you're "infertile" There are a variety of causes for this. In our case, S.A. suffers from something called PCOS, poly-cystic ovarian syndrome. But it doesn't really matter what the reason is, because all you're thinking is that you've been paying for birth control pills for years when there was absolutely no reason to do so because you COULDN'T GET PREGNANT ANYWAY.

But the doctors tell you not to worry; that they can get you pregnant. And because you have a female doctor, you don't assume that this statement involves anything inappropriate. The first thing they have you do (And by YOU I mean the woman. They pretty much tell the man to sit there and be quiet.) is to take hormones. Hormones are EXPENSIVE. Well, they're not too bad to start; about the same as birth control. But by the time they have OCTUPLED your dose, they cost about as much as an Escalade. Intentionally taking hormones at all seems silly to me, because I’ve been around my wife during PMS and she seems to have an excess of hormones. And furthermore, I’m pretty damn sure she wouldn’t be willing to pay for them, because they occasionally make her act like Linda Blair in the Exorcist. Yet, because the doctor said so, we pay for the hormones even though it means not buying our Escalade that month.

THEN she has to take fertility pills. Evidently, some women’s bodies decide it’s unfair that the guy sends 87 billion sperm at the 1 egg she sends out every month, so they decide not to send out ANY eggs some months and when they do send somebody out, it’s the ugly, misshapen egg who never seems to get any dates. (Poor spermies… It’s like trying to pick up chicks at a monster truck rally.) So she takes fertility pills, which are supposed to convince the body to send out a few eggs at a time, which you really hope they do, because these pills cost about as much as a Ferrari.

After a couple months with no baby, they decide to do an ultrasound of the ovaries to see if there are any eggs being produced. This is done by inserting a wand into the birth canal and pushing until the doctor can gently stroke the woman’s tonsils with the wand. I’m sure it’s very little fun for the woman on whom it’s being performed, but it REALLY sucks for the guy who has to watch. There are things in life NO guy should ever witness, and watching a doctor insert her arm up to the shoulder inside your wife is DEFINITELY one of them. Also at about this time, they ask the guy to undergo semen analysis. No biggie there. They ask you to bring in a sample in a cup, because evidently a dirty Kleenex contaminates the sample. It’s very odd handing a Tupperware full of ejaculate to a nurse approximately your grandmother’s age. It's also REALLY uncomfortable when the office manager of the urology clinic conducting the test, with whom you must have discussions about your sperm, is your mother-in-law.

Anyway, after about 4 more months of hormones and fertility pills, which do not result in a baby, but very nearly result in divorce on numerous occasions, you start looking for another, more serious, approach.

So you go and talk to “The Fertility Specialist”(reproductive endocrinologist, for all you science nerds). Now you might ask, “Who the hell have you been talking to for the past 6 months?” An OB-GYN, of course! Because there ARE no fertility specialists in Northern Michigan! So you meet with a specialist from Ann Arbor who tells you it’s time for IN VITRO FERTILIZATION (IVF). That’s when they harvest eggs from the woman and inject the man’s sperm into them. I’m not clear on how they harvest the eggs, but I like to imagine a really small grain combine (Think Dennis Quaid in “Inner Space”.) driving around through her ovaries. This procedure makes the cost of fertility drugs seem like pocket change. It’s like being told that you, personally, must now finance the production of the Stealth Bomber. Thankfully, your wife is skeptical, because she's read that there are normally a few steps taken between fertility hormones and IVF. So she arranges to get a second opinion from another fertility specialist in Grand Rapids, and this doc says not to rush things. He feels it’s time for shots.

Now the prospect of my wife getting shots doesn’t really bother me. I actually welcome it, because the shots only cost as much as a regular passenger jet, as opposed to a stealth bomber, and, thankfully, SHE’S the one who’s gonna get poked. But then they hit you with the kicker. The shots must be given AT HOME. AND YOU (the man) ARE GONNA HAVE TO GIVE THEM!

I hate needles. I have a long history of passing out when given shots. And it’s even worse to watch someone else get one. So what do I say to this new plan? Of course I say, “Yes dear.” And so I give her 4 shots in 4 days and I do not pass out once, though I do get light headed and break out in a cold sweat on a couple occasions. And then comes the moment that you thought would be the good part, when you started “trying” months ago.

When you’re young, you don’t think you can ever have enough sex. That is because you’re young and stupid. Sex is great when it’s just for fun, but it turns out that when you’re “trying”, it becomes just a little bit less so. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still great, but it certainly takes away from the spontaneity of the situation. Instead of “Hey there, baby. ::nudge, nudge::” it becomes, “WE HAVE TO GO HOME BECAUSE I’M OVULATING NOW!!!!”

Which leads me to my point.

I’m sore today. My back is killing me. This is a result of “trying”. I hurt my back a little bit while “trying” on Saturday night and then I re-aggravated it golfing yesterday afternoon. Last night, when it was time to “try” again, I knew I had to take one for the team, even though I could hardly move. So I did. And today, I kept having to pause my desk work in order to lie for a moment on the floor. And I’ve decided I need to bitch about it. Anyway, that’s pretty much the whole of it. Thanks for letting me vent.

Laterz