One year past

366 days ago - thank you, Leap Day - and I was lying in a hospital bed awaiting the arrival of my surgeon about now. The following days and weeks would turn out to be much harder than I expected. The following year didn't turn out as we had expected or hoped, either. But in spite of all of the disappointments and the unexpected results, reality is that we ARE in a better place now than we were a year ago. So I don't regret it.

I've still got pain. The surgery that supposedly reduces or eliminates this pain for 89% of guys has still left me in the unlucky 11%. I still can't wear my old boxer briefs, or comfortably walk around naked for very long. I still have to keep my body temperature down, or the pain gets gradually and increasingly worse. If I ever have digestive issues, the pain radiates downward and gets intensely bad. Even wearing my new underwear, if I spend too many hours up and walking around in a day, the throbbing ache returns and builds. And the affected gland is still sore, still feels bruised to the touch pretty much all the time. Fortunately the throbbing/hurting on its own without touch has mostly stopped, though I'm not sure how much of that to attribute to true healing and how much of it is just the transition to cooler weather. The pain has gradually lessened over the past year, though I haven't noticed any further improvement over the last few months, so I expect that the level I have now is the level I'll have to live with for the rest of my life. Do I wish that the pain would go away, that I could somehow change it at least back to where it was before the surgery? Yeah, I do. But I DON'T wish that I hadn't gone through with the surgery. Even in spite of the consequences, I don't regret it.

I would regret if I hadn't tried. I would regret if I had refused the surgery, and we had never known if it would have helped or not. No matter what our ultimate result, I would regret if I spent the rest of my life wondering "what if? ...what if we could have reached the end of this journey sooner, or better, if I had manned up and gone through with it?" Even if it didn't bring the big changes we hoped for, I would regret too if we had missed out on the improvements we HAVE seen - testosterone did rise some on its own post-surgery, and morphology stepped up twice from 0 to 1 to holding at 2. That 2% may not be much, but should it ultimately come to IVF, it's that 2% that gives us a 100-150% shot at having a success within 2-3 cycles at most. THAT is hugely encouraging news, to both myself and my wife, and I would go through the surgery all over again today if that's what it took to give us that chance.

I won't be spending the next month on strict bed rest, but today is significant beyond just the surgery anniversary. Our first shipment of HCG injections - Pregnyl - arrives this afternoon, so we'll be starting those on Monday. Three shots a week, intramuscular, for three months, then it's another visit back to my old frenemy - the Collection Room. I'd be lying if I said I was thrilled about having more shots in the next three months than I've had in my entire life prior. But it's less scary than the surgery was - definitely. The doc says I'm the ideal candidate to respond well to these, and I have to believe that's true - if just the Clomid helped raise my testosterone as much as it did, then how much more could direct hormone injections help? It gives us a chance once more to avoid IVF altogether, which we've been hoping to avoid all along, so that's well worth trying. But even if that doesn't work out, and IVF becomes our next step, this ought to at least give us our best possible shot with IVF, too. And again, at least we're in a position now and armed with the knowledge now that, should it come to that, odds are overwhelmingly in our favor that we'll be looking at success well before next November 16 rolls around.

So how am I doing today? Apprehensive, about these injections. Reflective, on where I was a year ago. Not wanting to be at work, as I'm tired and work has been difficult to find concentration and motivation for over most of the last month. But I'm grateful that it's Friday afternoon. I'm grateful that I'm NOT today where I was a year ago right now. Grateful for the opportunities we've been given, for the hope we've been given, and still amazed and encouraged by the too-odd-to-be-coincidence nature of the entire recent chain of events.

"And the wonder of it all is I'm still standing

And the wonder of it all is we're still standing

Never planned it

And I wonder where I'll be next year"

-- Monday Morning, "Wonder of It All (Next Year)"

These bruises make for better conversation

So yesterday we returned to the fertility doc for the first time in a year. For an appointment with my wife's name on it, the focus was an awful lot on me, but I guess that makes sense - I'm the one with the medical issue we're fighting against, not her, so unless I was absent or incapacitated, then they don't need to talk to her about me as if I couldn't hear. My wife didn't like feeling overlooked, and I don't at all blame her; I felt exactly the same way when we last saw her OB/GYN last year, at our first appointment after getting the first blasted SA results. But that's not the point of these thoughts.

We're in a much better place today than I thought we'd be going into yesterday. Or at least in a much better place than I was afraid we would be. Or both... both, really, and I'm grateful for that. I expected last night and today would be about exploring funding options and planning to schedule an IVF cycle. I feared that yesterday we would be met with a "you're self-pay" declaration upon trying to leave and demanded to fork over $180 (or more) just to walk back into our lives. But while we are indeed self-pay now, the $75 requested of us yesterday is much more manageable and palatable. And we don't have to pay it again for at least three months. And we're not scrambling to figure out IVF funding ASAP today. And the doc even said, contrary to both of our expectations, that we've got a shot without IVF, pending the results of this newest - and final - three-month wait.

Instead, today I'm waiting for a phone call from a mail order specialty pharmacy, to get my info so they can ship us our first month's supply of Ovidrel injections. HCG, jabbed in above the hip, three times a week for the next three months. Yeah, there will be bruises. But the doc said I actually fit the ideal profile of the kind of patient who will respond well to this drug, and they even have direct experience in their clinic of patients like me who did not respond to Clomid but who did great on HCG, so we're going to give it a shot. (Ha ha.) If it works like we hope, we could be good candidates for IUI at worst, and we could be good candidates to get pregnant on our own at best. If it doesn't work, then at least we're no worse off than we thought we were going into yesterday. We'd have spent $600+ and three months, invested more blood (literally) in the process, and still be looking at IVF. But at least we would know that we had exhausted every other possible avenue before reaching that point. We would have given ourselves the best chance possible (and hopefully even improved our chances with IVF itself by improving my SA parameters over where they are now). And, should we ultimately be faced with IVF, the doc said that our specific medical circumstances give us the BEST possible chance of success of ANY couple who does IVF - we would almost certainly have a baby within 2-3 cycles, at most. So there's a lot of hope there. Even if we end up having to take the steps we don't want to take, at least we know there IS a light at the end of the tunnel, it's NOT an oncoming train, and for the first time since we first started trying to get pregnant two years ago, there will be a visible, POSITIVE endpoint to the journey.

I'm hella grateful for all of that.

How odd that I would be offered, and would receive, a promotion and a major raise at work out of the blue JUST RIGHT NOW. Back in July, we couldn't do HCG because it was cost-prohibitive for us then. But now, suddenly, when we really need it, I have the income to cover it and STILL give us extra money each month. That seems more than a little strange, but then again, it doesn't seem strange at all... because I don't believe that that is all just happy coincidence. It sounds like, it looks like, it feels like a God thing, and like maybe He hasn't forgotten us after all. Maybe His answer to our prayers isn't and hasn't been, "No." It's just been, "Not yet. But wait... I've got something even better in store for you."

Now, being honest - yesterday wasn't all happy news and hope. At least not for me. Of course there's the looming commencement of triweekly hormone injections, which is located nowhere on my list of "How to Have a Good Time." That wasn't what really bothered me, though. I'm not entirely sure why, or why it surprised me, but yesterday re-opened the "I feel broken" wound. Maybe because somewhere in my subconscious, I thought we were done trying to "fix" me, so I wasn't expecting my issues to still be the primary focus of discussion, and I was ready to just get over myself and move on. Maybe because the nurse drew big circles in Sharpie on my sides, which was funny at the time, but which thereafter made me feel like some sort of medical school demonstration dummy; I didn't even want to change shirts so that I wouldn't have to look at them. Maybe just because the test results from last month, and the subsequent chain of events, have forced the whole infertility issue back to the front of our minds, where it had at least sometimes been allowed to fade into the background over the preceding months... so the renewed focus has brought back issues I thought were closer to resolved, but instead they had only been buried. Maybe, and most likely, it was some combination of all of the above. I'm in a better mindset today, but I'd be lying if I said those feelings didn't still linger into now. Thank God that I have an amazing wife who was determined not to let me bury myself last night, and who has given me the strength to walk this road by walking with me, every step of the way.

So that's where we are now. We have three months reprieve from any more doctor visits, from any more test results, from any more bad news. Three months that will hopefully put us in a better position for positive results and GOOD news than we have ever been to this point. Armed with the knowledge that the odds are in our favor, and we can AND WILL BEAT THIS. Yesterday ultimately went a lot better than even my best hopes hoped it might, and I really can't convey how grateful I am for that. God, please continue to guide us and give us Your strength, but thank You for all that You've done. And for all that You're continuing to do. We love You. Amen.