So our visit to the fertility clinic today started off great. Shannon and I took separate cars from work. Great minds think alike as we both stopped at the highway McD's to get a diet coke at the same time! We parked together and walked in together. We can get through this together!
I was really nervous that the staff knew about my SA results and would look at us, or even worse, Shannon only, with pity. Luckily they just had us sit down.
The visit got bad for a bit after that. A couple who had reached 36 weeks with our doctor's help had brought flowers for the doc to thank her, and in an empty waiting room other than us we had to hear the joy they all shared over the pregnancy. Keeping it together was difficult. I am sure we would feel the same joy, but seriously in the waiting room of the infertility clinic? I don't want to hear about the names or the beauty of the ultrasound images in that setting people! Shannon was less than pleased.
When we got called in to see the doctor we went through Shannon's results first. Shannon is as fertile as they come. Good news number one of the day!
My results were as we knew: Zero tadpoles. The one area we held out hope for was that they hadn't centrifuged the SA and there might be a few. They had. Still none.
Next we talked about all the blood tests and genetic tests I'd get done. They are going to test the following hormones: testosterone, FSH, SHBG. If those are out of whack they can either be corrected, or it means there could be testicular failure. As for genetics they are going to test for karyotype and y gene deletion. I also have another SA scheduled where they will do a post urine analysis as the boys might be headed to a party in the bladder instead of heading home after last call. I am so happy we are doing all these tests together, and now. We have been reading about horror stories of months of waiting for each test and doctors telling the couple there was no chance each time. Our team rules.
Next we asked the question we had been dreading: what are our chances of finding some soldiers in the barracks? Now I don't know if this was just to keep us sane, but to hear that our urologist finds them "most of the time" was amazing. It is very rare, and usually due to genetics that would have been tested already, that she doesn't find any.
I think the weight of it all hit us right then. We shed some tears and we let the doctor know about all the horrible forum and blogs we'd been reading. The worst was the one where the husband didn't have any after extraction, they decided to adopt, and then he vanished from the blog only to come back 6 months later divorced and post suicide attempt. We laughed about it through the tears and got our first great quote of the experience: "If it is not a .org, don't do it". Agreed doc.
A final piece of good news from today. Unlike a bunch of the forums and blogs we read, they do not, under any circumstance, start IVF until we have found tiny tots or not. Lots of stories about required sperm donor backup had us spooked that we would need to make that decision before we knew what we could find. We are both ecstatic about that.
I also was reassured that unless I like to drink pesticide, while in a hot tub, on a daily basis, this wasn't anything I did to cause it. I am cleared for a beer tonight.
The final step for the day was an ultrasound of Shannon's ovaries and more blood drawn for me. We need to start getting used to needles and poking.
All in all a very good day under the circumstances.
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