Hoping for a Miracle

I’ve spent the past five days incessantly reading about Azoospermia and what it means for fertility with a lot of sobbing and embarrassing break downs along the way.  A week ago I didn’t even know that there was such a thing.  I’ve always considered my husband and I to have an element of “luck” on our side.  Things have come pretty easy for us and neither of us has had to endure any great hardships in life.  We started trying to have a baby in January 2012 and we both knew that it would happen in its due course, although if I’m being perfectly honest then I must admit that every so often I feared something might be wrong with me.  Still, we persevered and never let ourselves get too stressed about it.  I saw my doctor about six months into the process and she referred me to a specialist who began running tests on me.  Test after test kept coming back normal and so we both felt there was a timing component to our struggle and we became more dedicated and diligent in trying to conceive.  Neither of us thought much about the semen sample from my husband which was really just checking off a box on the mandatory list from the specialist.  Then we got the phone call that changed everything, which went something like this:

Nurse:  “There were no sperm in your husband’s sample.”

Me:  “None? Not even one!”

Nurse:  “Zero.”

Me:  “He mentioned that it was…errr…a bit awkward with that little cup.  Should he come in to retest?”

Nurse: “He needs to go see a urologist.  Stop taking the Clomid, it’s not going to help.”

So here we are in the middle of the two week wait between getting this devastating/shocking/painful/frightening news and actually being able to speak to a urologist about it.  In my hours upon hours of online research I’ve learned that the double hernia surgery my husband had in 1996 is a very likely cause of the self-diagnosed azoospermia.  In regards to fertility, I’ve read that the lucky couples facing azoospermia are able to have biological children of their own through the process of IVF/ICSI.  “Lucky” is a bit misleading because ICSI is more risky, expensive (neither are covered by our insurance – I checked!) and quite frankly painful than even your standard IVF (which sounds quite scary enough all by itself).  It basically involves the doctor surgically removing the sperm from the male (ouch) and manually injecting it into the mature eggs from the female and then waiting to see if healthy embryos result.  This is leaving out all of the self-injections and excruciating prep work that must occur before any of the above can take place.  The less “lucky” couples have to make decisions about adoption or using sperm donors.  I can’t even begin to acknowledge either of these options except to say that I’ve always thought of adoption as a beautiful thing and if we ever find ourselves in that experience then I would treasure the child.

I realize that we are at the very beginning of what is likely to be a long and difficult journey and I can by no means be sure of what to expect from the test results we receive next.  I also fully recognize that my inner pessimist has taken control and is now leading the charge.  I want to be, and even aspire to be, one of these people who have that glass-half-full approach to all things difficult in life, but alas, here I sit thinking things like “this sucks” and “I don’t know if we can do it” and conjuring up doomsday scenarios.  It’s okay, though, because starting now I’m going to force my inner optimist out, and right now she’s hoping against hope that there was some ridiculous error at the lab and that we are actually very fertile and only need to give it some more time.  She plans on giving the doctor an earful about the emotional roller coaster that her nurse and lab have caused and she won’t settle for anything less than an apology.  She’ll demand to know what the next steps are…steps that are surely better than the ones I’m internetting right now.