Don't forget to remember me...

2006-10-27T17:45:00.000-07:00

MY VISIT TO THE UROLOGIST

Okay, so this week I had a kidney infection. I had to go to the urologist because this was one of the worst ones that i've had and my regular dr. office pissed me off and didn't give me a strong enough antibiotic. While i was sitting in the waiting room I had a revelation: this is the SAME Dr. my dh went to about his infertility.. I finally get to meet this man.. and boy, do I have questions for him...
So I finally get back to see the Dr. and he turns out to be the one of the most intellligent, yet LOONEY, Dr.'s I have ever met. I agreed 100% with everything he told me and I think he is a reputable Dr. who obviously knows what he is talking about and truly cares about making his patients feel good. With that said, I will lay the dialect out here:
The Dr. walks in.
Dr: how's Mr. (our last name)?
Me: he's good
Dr: ya pregnant yet?
Me: didn't think I could be.. can I get that way?
Dr: well, unfortunately, I don't think that is gonna happen for you guys naturally. So how is 'dh'?
Me: Oh, he's great.. he doesn't care that we can't have kids.. he doesn't want them anyway I have found out
Dr: he's 25 years old. Kids are not what 25 year old men want. he'll come around. you guys have plenty of time. So how's he liking that testosterone I put him on?
Me: oh, he loves it.. but he's taking it for all the wrong reasons.. he wanted it so he could "blow up" muscle-wise. But he is so mean when he first shoots up.
Dr: So are y'all humping like rabbits now?
Me: (flabergasted) uh, no?
Dr: why not? you don't like sex.. you gotta give him some sex..
Me: I DO.. he gets it almost whenever he wants it, he just doesn't want it a lot like a lot of other guys do
Dr: Ah, give him time.. he will
Me: his sex drive is plenty for me.. I am not complaining
Dr. good

At this point in the conversation I am dumbfounded that the Dr. obviously knows of a procedure that can be done and I am dying to ask what it is, but then my body suddenly reminds me of the agonizing pain I am in from the kidney infection. I wince..

Dr: so what brings you here today?
Me: I had a kidney infection, and I have been taking an antibiotic and finished it but all of the symptoms are still there.. It hurts so bad..
Dr: how many UTI's have you had?
Me: around 6.. I've been getting them since I was 13
Dr. You wear anything for pant wetting?
Me: I don't wet my pants!
Dr: but, you marked on here you leak some when you sneeze..
Me: I meant, I have done that like maybe a few times since I had my baby!
Dr: (laughing) just kidding, thats perfectly normal... What kind of soap do you use?
Me: Dove.. unscented
Dr: this may be the problem for all of the recurrences.. Dove dries you out.. you need to be using Dial... Are you dry down there?
Me: yes, alot of time
Dr: do have problems getting wet during sex?
Me: no
Dr: I want to take a look.. (hands me the "big paper towel".. and mutters something I can't remember)

I proceed to start to drop my pants when the Dr. screams "NO! Don't get naked yet! (Dr. walks out, goes out in hallway and screams "Get me a nurse in here. This gals trying to get naked on me! (laughing)" In the meantime, I am mortified, but it really helped me forget about being nervous for the actual exam. Then the knock on the door from the Dr. and the nurse..

Dr: Coming in.
Me: ok
Dr: just lay back prop your legs up at the end of the table.. (pushing down on my legs) bend 'em all the way down.. I wanna see how good these thighs are (laughing)....... I know something else thats causing you to be dry. God put hair on you for a reason down here. Why are you shaving it off?
Me: I don't that often
Dr: promise me you won't do it anymore.. you are already gonna go through enough pain letting this grow back out
Me: ok?
Dr: Your test results say your kidney infection is gone, so I am gonna put you on a mild antibiotic for a while, you switch to dial soap, and quit shaving down there, and I think things are gonna get better.
Me: Are you sure? This really hurts.
Dr. Trust me. lets just try this
Me: ok
Dr: alright
Me: Oh wait.. I have one more question... What can be done for my husband as far as us getting pregnant? Because when he came home that day after getting his results, he made it sound like you said he could never have kids and that there was nothing that could be done about it.
Dr: I said you guys would never get pregnant naturally, and to be quite honest there is only one type of fertility treatment that is available for y'alls situation. That's ICSI. And what that is, is.... but you can't tell your husband they are going to stick a needle in his testicle because...
Me: I already told him. I have already been searching this on the internet and I know all about it. I already told him about the needle..
Dr: then he'll probably never go, it would be hard to make even me go do that, but it really won't hurt him.. the area will be numbed
Me: I know I told him already.. he just don't care about doing anything... he doesn't want kids.. I feel like I am in an unfair situation.. (My lip starts quivering).. he thinks that we'll waste a lot of money and have no money or baby in the end
Dr: who doesn't waste a lot of money.. I waste money on new cars all the time and I don't have nothing to show for them.. if you want a baby, it is deifinitely worth it. If its important to you, then you guys should go for it. He'll come around. You just have to approach him the right way. And you canot cry!! That scares us guys. You are crying right now and you cannot do that when you approach him on this. It will make him feel powerless and scared and he'll run..
Me: okay
Dr. feel better?
Me: Is it very likely that we will really be able to get pregnant?
Dr: I don't know but technology is very good these days so it is definitely possible, but a fertility specialist will have to give you the odds. Y'all just really need to go and see the specialist
Me: I know, will you tell my husband that when he comes back for his checkup in January?
Dr: I 'll do what I can.
Me: THANK YOU SO MUCH!

As soon as I leave, dh calls to see what the Dr. told me. Boy was he suprised to hear what all the Dr. and I discusssed. I told him this exact dialogue to which he gave a disgusted sigh, and I immediatley changed the subject. That was 2 days ago and it has not been brought up once, nor will it be unless I do it.

I am so lost at what to do now. I have so much anger coming back geared at my husband. Sometimes I wonder if I even want to have his baby or leave him altogether. We just don't have a relationship these days. All he cares about is work and T.V. That's it!!! I SWEAR!!!!! He pays me absolutely no attention, forgets everything I ask him to do,and all he wants to do is tell cop stories all the freaking time!! I am SOOOO sick of him. Is this normal to feel this way about your husband. Its almost like I want to give him an ultimatum: "This is important to me...VERY IMPORTANT!!!either see a specialist or we are getting a divorce" so that I could have a good reason to divorce him. I know that if it weren't for my daughter, I probably would have left by now. I could have a part time job aside from school and support myself but that won't be possible with a child. And she has bonded so much with him and all of his family... aargh... the list goes on and on!! I tell myself.."Just get, through school.. one more year.. then you can leave him" but I am so scared i will never have the sourage to leave. I need advice.. BAD!! Have any?? Please, feel free to say anything you want.. seriously!!! Am I being a baby or being selfish, or does he owe it to me to atleast make an attempt to conceive?

*Being a very soon to be teacher, I just wnated to say that I do KNOW that there are many grammatical errors in this entry. I typed this crap so fast and with my husband sitting not three feet away so I had to do it really fast!!! SORRY!!

2006-09-19T21:12:00.000-07:00

I don't really know what to write on this post. A lot has changed since the last time that I wrote. I had to take a break from blogging because I realized that writing about my problems with my husband on our infertility situation was only making me more angry at him. I would re-read my posts and be like "Gah, he is so horrible, etc.." So I took a break, worked on my marriage, and sorted everything out, and today I am at a totally different place than I was a few weeks ago. In many ways, my marriage has never been stronger than it is now. In a few ways it is not, but for the most part, our marriage is really good right now. I am at peace with everything, and my relationship with God has never been stronger as well. I hope to keep it that way. I know that this situation is what it took to get me back to my close walk with God, and it is so much easier to go to Him in times of need than we things are going good, but I hope to not be that person anymore. I want to start living a more Christian- like life, and be a good role model and Christian witness to the one child that God has already so graciously blessed me with. I never knew how blessed I was until the chance to do it all over again was taken away from me (or so I assume it was according to the dr, but I do know that if God has a baby planned for me, then it will miraculously happen anyway.) So now, I have to figure out what I am going to do on this blog. I thought about cancelling it, but I really do not want to. I have made many friends in the short time that I have been on here, and all of them mean so much to me (I have still been checking in on everyone's blog a few times a week!) One thing I wanted to mention is the reason for my new corny blog name. I wanted to change it because I didn't want any of my dh's family or my own family to find me on here. While I was trying to come up with a new name, the song "Don't Forget to Remember Me" by Carrie Underwood was on CMT, and I just went with it. I was also in a hurry so that had a lot to do with it as well. Also, on my last post I wrote that we would find out something in January 2007 on whether or not anything can be done. Let me elaborate for those who were wondering. My dh has an appt. with the urologist again to check his testosterone levels. He was recently put on legal steroids, and they want to see if this is increasing his test. level like it should be doing. His sperm count will also be checked again. One thing in particular, I will be attending this appt. which is a first. I have a LOT of questions for the Dr.!!! I want to find out what our options are, what the chances are, and see if we need to seek the advice of a specialist in infertility. I also hope that his test. level has increased because steroids are very detrimental to a man's fertility (not that he has anything 'fertile' about him in the first place, there is always the chance of things improving, and steroids will kill that chance if he stays on them for too long.) If we could even increase the sperm count from 0 to 100, that's 100 sperm that could be frozen, and we could look into invitro. He wouldn't have to endure any kind of pain which has been the problem of him wanting us to seek medical treatment. Who knows!!! Not very likely, and I am definately not holding out hope. I just don't like the steroids anyway. They make him very moody- as if men aren't already moody enough. Well, enough rambling. I promise I will try not to wait so long to post again!!!

2006-08-29T21:16:00.000-07:00

The Next Day

Okay, so the next day I had class all day long. We finally got to talk around 7 that night. We started the conversation off the way you always do when you are both sick of talking about it but you left it unresolved the night before so you gotta finish it. We started off talking at first. I wanted to yell and get angry, but I refrained and listened carefully to everything he was telling me. He told me that he loved more than anything, but he was nowhere as close to me as he once was anymore. He said that everytime I had brought this conversation up (mind you, this is only like 3 days after he found out he can't get me pregnant, I mean...give me a break!!!) I had pushed him further and further away from me. He said that he could not live the rest of his life with such a miserable person because I was making him miserable. He said that he refused to do that to himself. He then bluntly told me that he was not going to see a specialist and if I couldn't handle that or if I couldn't handle not ever mentioning it to him again then I need to pack my things and leave. He also said he never wanted to talk about the fact that he couldn't have kids, and he also didn't want me talking to any of my friends about it either. I understand him not wanting me to do that, I mean, men think for some reason that it insults their manhood, but if I couldn't talk to him or my friends, then who was I supposed to talk about it with??? This blog I guess, but if he ever read it, he would probably have the internet disconnected from our house!

Okay, so I have always been taught "wives, submit to your husbands." I am not going to feed you any crap and say that I always do, most of the time I know I do right the opposite. But I was trying to handle the situation in a real mature, Christian- like way, and I agreed to once agian silence myself. It never occured to me that he was not treating his wife as God commands husbands to do. So that was that, and we haven't spoken about it since, and everything has been great- at least on the outside. But inside I am dying. Seriously. Somewhere, somehow I have lost myself in this marriage. I have forgotten all of the dreams and goals I had for myself. I used to be somebody. I used to be somebody that others wanted to around and "hang out" with. Now I am forced to sit in an empty house (besides my precious 2 year old) most of the time (my husband is a deputy sheriff so he works all the time) and sit around and watch the world pass me by. All I can ever think about is how you are only given one chance in this world and thats it. And it could be over tomorrow. I keep telling myself "Allison, what are you doing??? Why are you settling???" I don't think I ever really considered the things that I would be giving up and how much I would have to change just to keep my husband happy. We never really showed each other our "true selves" until we were married, and now we both see how different we both are. The whole time that I was engaged, I never sat down and thought about what it would be like to be married to Steven. I know I didn't pray as much as I should've. Even though I did pray, my ears were closed to any response that God may have given me because inside, I had my mind already made up. I had that huge rock on my hand and I loved flaunting it, and yes Allison was getting married. Never did we try and prepare ourselves or even think about what marriage would be. I do remember getting mad at him for yelling at me in front of my daughter one time, and I told him "never again" and that the engagement was off. But of course he begged me to forgive him and said it would never happen again so I took him back. Come to think of it, I've never even told anyone about that. But anyway, we played house for the first few months, and then our fights started as I think everyone's do the first year of marriage. We have really had some ups and wayyy downs, and most of those were probably my fault- I can admit that, but nothing we couldn't handle. Problem is we weren't praying like we should and we handled things ourselves. I guess I neer imagined that there would be a curveball thrown and it would be something that we could not handle on our own-infetility, of course. Anyways, like I said, everything has been going great on the outside for like the last three days because I honored what I agreed to do and have not said a word about anything to do with our problem. That is-- until last night.

Even though I am tired of typing, I am not going to "keep you in suspense" and wait until tomorrow to tell you what happened. I am basically just spinning my wheels and not getting anywhere in the argument of trying to get him to see a specialist. He just refuses. But I have accomplished one thing, according to him, I have successfully pushed him even farther away than I did the last time, and if I bring it up again, its over. He says he just cannot take anymore of it. I'm sure it would take more than that for him to leave ( I know that was probably mostly true , but a little exaggerative) but part of me wanted to be like "Really?!?!?!?" "Is that ALL I have to do to get you to leave me, because if it is, let me bring it up again, rrrright now!!!" I just have so much anger towards him right now that I wish he would leave. I mean, he is just not compromising and isn't that what marriage is all about? I mean how can he tell me that I can never bring this issue up ever again with anybody. I mean, he has seriously lost his mind!!! But tonight, once again, I agreed to never bring it up to him again (about going to see a specialist.) I did tell him if I am going to respect his feelings and not keep pressuring him about going to the specalist, then he needed to respect my feelings, and realize that sometimes I am gonna cry and be upset, and he is going to have to keep from getting angry about it and be there for me. Not talk about it with me- just simply be there for me. He said he could handle doing that. We'll see. I am sure anyone reading this can probably predict our fate and I know that I can too probably, but for now, I guess you could say I'm just biding my time.

On the contrary though, and most importantly, I am taking a step back and I am giving all of this to the Lord. I just can't do it anymore, really, I can't. I don't think God is going to give me anything I can't handle, so hopefully everything will work out for us. I told Steven this exact same thing tonigh at dinner, but he was like "No, I'm telling you, you bring it up again, and its over. I'm not playing." I said "Okay, well if thats the attitude you are going to carry with you along this journey then I can tell you right now we will fail, and I'm not so sure I care if we do anymore." He didn't comment, but we had dinner and did the Wal-Mart thing, and have been getting along fine. I think I am just too tired to even have the deire to even fight about it anymore- so maybe I won't ever bring it up again??? Naaah, no way. There will come a day...

* I just wanted to say thank you to all of you who have been leaving comments and emailing me. All of you have meant so much to me, more than you'll ever know. Its so weird that someone on my computer screen can have such an impact on my emotional well-being. But you all make me feel so much better when I get on here and see that you all care enough to read what I have to say and give me your advice and most of all, your prayers. So please, don't stop!!

2006-08-28T21:01:00.000-07:00

How My Husband Feels

The hardest part of this whole infertility thing is that my husband no longer cares that we won't be able to have kids. He was upset for like maybe 24 hours and now he does not want me to even mention it. Everyone keeps telling me that "oh, he does care, its just hard for men to show their feelings" but I really don't think this is the case in our situation. He has never been big on wanting to have kids and he has always told me that if I never wanted to have anymore kids, then it would be fine with him. He has always said that he loves my daughter just like she is his, and she is enough for him. I have always told him, on the other hand, that I have always wanted around 3 kids, and I even told him after he proposed that he had to promise me that we could have at least one kid. He said one would be okay. Now let me stop right here and clarify something. I realize that this is sounding like maybe me and my husband don't need a baby b/c obviously my husband wouldn't want it. Before anyone says anything hurtful like that, let me just tell you that my husband is an excellant father to my daughter and if we were to ever have a kid, he would LOVE it. He's just a 25 year old guy right now and making babies just still isn't top on his priority list, I don't know if it ever will be, and he has even said that he won't ever have to have a baby to make him be hapy. He just simply says there are took many other things in life that make him happy already and he doesn't NEED anything else. ????? I don't understand!!!! About the third day after we found out he has a zero count, he told me that he will not go to see a specialist to see about any other procedures ( and there are some options for some men, sometimes sperm can be extracted form the testicles), he does not want to use donor sperm (and I can understand this), he will probably never want to adopt and if I can't handle any of that then I needed to leave him. He said that everytime I said anything on the issue it made his "blood boil" and if I was going to continue moping around and crying then he didn't want to stay married. He said that he was over it and that life goes on and if I could't move on and not keep bringing it up then I needed to leave him because I "was not going to make HIM miserable." So I then proceeded to say "okay, well I guess this means I just can't be with you then." We stayed up half the night discussing how we would divide everything up, how we were going to tell our families, and etc... He cried and I cried. Neither one of us wanted it but we both wanted to be happy. He said he'd hoped it wouldn't come to this, although the urologist warned him it might, but his main concern was for my happiness. He said "I can be happy without a kid, you can't." How much simpler can the reason we should split ways be laid out for us. I agreed. He went to bed and about an hour later I came to bed crying, wrapped my arms around him and told him I was sorry for ever saying that I wanted out and could he please forgive me. He told me he was glad that I changed my mind and we could work through this. He told me we would talk things over the next day and get everything resolved. The next day, I agreed to do something that I now deeply regret.

* My husband is begging me to get off the computer now so he can use it so I will have to finish this tomorrow!!! Gah!!! Men!!!

2006-08-27T17:30:00.000-07:00

My First Post

Well, this is my first post- so here goes. I began looking at blogs after my cousin, Anna, introduced them to me a few weeks ago. She is my first cousin, but has lived in Florida for years now, therefore we haven't been as close as we used to be until here recently. A few months ago I phoned her to catch up on lost time. I had no idea at the time, but after a few conversations with her, I learned that she was suffering from infertility. As cold- hearted as this sounds, I never even really considered this as an issue. I just never took the time to think about what that would be like. I have never known anyone who was not able to have children. Well... let me take that back... I guess I really do know several people couples that can't have children, but once again, I had never even thought twice about infertility. It was something I never had to deal with and it was just that. I never knew what was about to happen to me.

With that said, let me start by giving a little history about me. I grew up in a very loving, Christian home. I have always known right from wrong. But as most of us do, I went a little "wild" in college. Not really wild so-to-speak, but I did a few things that I was raisesd not to do. My second semester in college I found out that I was pregnant. When my boyfriend found at that I was pregnant, well..., he ran. My parents were very hurt to say the least, but they always loved me, and I moved out of the dorms and back in with them at the end of my first year of college. In November 2003, I gave birth to my beautiful little girl Aspen. Six months later I met my soul mate, and we were married in January 2005. Everything has been great this first year and a half of our marriage, despite the common ups and downs the first year of marriage usually brings. I love my husband very much and I hope to spend the rest of my life with him.

Now, revert back to the present. About a month ago I finally talked my husband, SW, into going to the doctor to see if he had any fertility problems. We have been trying to get pregnant ever since we got married, and it has been a little over a year and a half now so I knew something must be wrong. We now know that my husband will never be able to have kids. My world went from being pretty close to perfect to falling apart in about the ten seconds it took him to tell me the bad news. I now know that infertililty is definitely an issue for many people. A big issue. Major issue. I now know that infertility is an issue that couples suffer from everyday. Gah, how my hurt aches for everyone who struggles with this. It is unimaginable pain that I will never be able to fully understand since I was so blessed to have my daughter that I had previous to my marriage. So who am I to be upset, right? I mean, how dare me to feel sorry for myself when so many other women will never have the chance to have even one child. I should be grateful that God gave me that- and I am. Believe me- I am SOOO grateful for that and I thank God everyday for my precious daughter. But the pain is still there, there's no denying it. It is like a death. Yes, I can have children, but my husband can't- therefore I can't. So it was just like being told that I could not have kids as well because with my husabnd, I can't. My husband is okay with the news, as he has never had that feeling of having to have kids to live a fulfilled life. But I am not okay. Not at all. I have gone into a deep depression and I am honestly worried that things will never be okay for me. I find that I can no longer pay attention in class anymore, I cannot sleep, and all I can do is think about and search the internet for articles that have anything to do with infertility or adoption. I have been very moody lately as well. I have been so mean to those who are close to me that I shock myself. I do not know who I am anymore. I have gone mad. It is so scary to lose control like I have.

Now, getting back to what I was originally talking about, my cousin Anna. She is the ONLY person who understands what I am going through, as I now understand what she has been having to go through all alone for the last couple of years now (I think we must be the first two in our huge family that are having this problem.) How guilty I feel for never being there for her before now. God Bless Her. Well, she is the one who showed me how therapeutic blogging can be, and I am starting this blog to try to learn to cope with infertility as so many other people are on here for. I have read so many blogs that have been unbelievably inspirational to me. So now I have decided to start my own as a sort of therapy for myself, and maybe someone else will be inspired by blog. There are so many things that this bad news has brought on in my life and in my marriage, and I will probably talk about a lot of it in later posts. I have no idea what God has in store for my future, but I will tell you that I am very scared. This trial has definitely tested my relationship with Christ, and I can already see myself drawing nearer to the Him, where I used to be, but let life get in the way. A speaker at our church this morning said something like this: "Many people never turn to God until something happens that no one else can help. Then they realize that there is NOTHING that God can't handle, and that we should ALWAYS call upon Him instead of the world." I had prayed last night that the message today would really speak to me and the situation that I am going though right now. What an awesome God we serve.. an answered prayer!! Thank you Lord!!! It was something that I really needed to hear. Praise be to God!!!

I just also want to say thank you to Anna if you are reading this. You are the only one in my life who understands the pain, and I am so sorry that you have to be that person. I know that God IS going to bless you and MC and I love y'all very much. God is going to get both of us through our trials and we both already know this. We have to start trusting in Him and put it in His hands, and LET Him take it out of ours. I think that is the only way we will be able to keep our sanity!!! You have meant more to me in the last couple of weeks than you will ever know, and for that I thank you. I love you girl.