While I usually love to tell "Our Story" to whomever will listen, I will spare the details of our first meeting, courtship, engagement, wedding etc. So here's the Readers Digest version....We met in September 2003, started dating in December 2005, got engaged in March of 2007 and married in May of 2008. How's that for short and sweet?
As an only child, I've known since I was a little girl that I wanted a big family. While I was afforded countless opportunities growing up that I wouldn't have had if I had had siblings, I always longed for a live in companion and envied my friends that had siblings. The DH being one of two boys agreed with me and we'd talked about having at least four kids...maybe five. All boys and one girl at the end for good measure! Needless to say, I went off the pill right after the wedding and we stopped trying to prevent it but decided not to "try" until November.
If I knew then what I know now I would have bought stock in the company that makes the little cheapo pregnancy and ovulation predicting tests! I swear, there wasn't a day that went by that I didn't pee on a stick for one reason or another. That and temping every morning was making me a crazy person. Meanwhile, EVERYONE around me was getting pregnant...some people even twice! For the longest time I was just this jealous, obsessed person because I just couldn't figure out why every other aspect of our lives was a fairytale but this.
When we finally hit that year and a half mark that they say you have to be "trying" for in order to begin fertility testing, I made an appointment with my OB/GYN. She did blood work and ultrasounds and told me to have my DH go to his doctor and start getting tested as well. All of my tests came back fine. As it appeared there was nothing wrong with me. DH had blood work and a semen analysis done and we found out that his testosterone levels were low and he had ZERO sperm. Not a one! His primary care doctor referred us to a urologist and we scheduled an appointment.
The first visit with the urologist was eye opening for both of us. DH wanted me to go with him and it's kind of weird to be in the room while a man fondles your husbands bits! :) They did a testicular ultrasound right there in the office, took some blood and ordered a second SA from the fertility clinic in our area. People travel from all over the country to be treated at this clinic and the urologist assured us that if there was sperm in there...they would find it.
The urologist called to schedule the follow up appointment and I look back at how naive I was to think that they would just be able to give DH testosterone and that would jump start his sperm production and we'd be fine. That was the last time I was optimistic about anything in this journey. The urologist informed us that DH had a genetic disorder called Klinefelters. Instead of having an X and a Y sex chromosome, he has two Xs and a Y or XXY. The urologist was blown away by this diagnosis because usually it has more physical manifestations that DH didn't show at all. Men with Klinefelters can be tall and lanky (DH is tall, but not particularly lanky), rounder facial features, sparse facial hair, rounder hips and more developed breast tissue. They can also experience some learning difficulties growing up. Although he's 6'3" tall compared to the 5'8"-5'10" of the rest of the men in his family, DH didn't have any of these other physical features.
The urologist explained to us that there was a procedure that he could undergo to harvest sperm from DH, but that it was invasive and there was no guarantee that they would find anything and that he wouldn't pass this on to our children. He referred us to a genetic counselor and to a doctor at the fertility clinic that did the second SA. We cried in the parking lot that day.
The genetic counselor answered some questions for us and the doctor at the fertility clinic got us started on all the testing that we would need to use donor sperm to start our family. I had blood work, ultrasounds and an HSG done to determine that all my parts were in working order. We met with a social worker to determine that we were ready to handle having a child that wasn't biologically ours. We passed all this with flying colors and then DH told me that he wasn't comfortable with using donor sperm. I felt the life drain out of me for the next several months as the realization that I would never carry a child sunk in.
For some reason, mothers day wasn't as bad as fathers day last year. I actually broke down and started crying in church on fathers day when I thought about the fact that I would never make my daddy a grandfather. Being a daddy's girl, this broke my heart in a way that I can't begin to describe.
For the next couple months, I began to try to heal by occupying my time with school and taking on some new hobbies. The yearning never really went away but I was able to control my emotions a lot better and didn't run the risk of tears on a daily basis so much anymore. Through all of this, DH never opened up to anyone about how he was feeling. He didn't really have a best friend that he felt comfortable telling about our situation and wasn't really close to his brother either. I, on the other hand, have the most wonderfully supportive group of girlfriends ever and could count on any one of them to listen to me vent, cry, yell, etc.
During all of this DH and I finally settled down in a church and decided to make it our home. Prior to this we had been bouncing around and looking for a place that felt right to us. We kept coming back to the same place though. We decided to follow the Lords guidance and commit to serve him at this church. We were baptized on December 5th, 2010 and haven't looked back since. DH had grown up in non-denominational churches his whole life so this wasn't his first dunk! I, on the other hand, was raised Roman Catholic so this was a completely new experience for me, but one that forever changed me.
We started attending weekly bible study and Sunday school and spending time with the scripture and praying about where we are and where we want to be. During this time, DH decided to open up about our fertility struggles to a friend of the family who had a hand in bringing us back to Christ. When DH told him about our situation, he recommended Bethany Christian Services to us. His son had adopted a child through them and had a positive experience. We discussed it and thought that adoption might be a viable option for us and decided to get more information.
I contacted Bethany Christian Services in December of 2010 and signed up for there orientation session on January 20, 2o11. In the meantime, my father made some phone calls and found out that Catholic Charities does adoptions as well. We scheduled an appointment with them for April 2, 2011. Now that adoption was on the table, my father was on mission. He reached out to everyone he knew that could help us find an agency to go through or a baby that needed a home.
We went to the orientation meeting with Bethany last week and it was a complete information overload. I wondered if we were up for all of that. The home study alone scared the crap out of me and while DH and I are pretty awesome people, I don't know how we would stack up on paper compared to some of the other couples at this meeting. The social worker told us that Bethany only placed 10 babies in 2010. I think it's safe to assume that more than 10 babies were put up for adoption in our state last year so I left there determined to find the agency that all those other birth mothers used!
They told us that the average wait for an infant with their agency was two years and after she explained the laws regarding the birth parents changing their minds, we were unsure if this was the answer for us. It seemed like a lot of money to spend for a long wait and a very good chance of heartache. We weren't sure if there was any other way to start our family, but we were pretty sure that God wasn't leading us down this path.
So I feel like that gets us up to date on things and paints a pretty good picture of our journey through all of this, so far. Now, I'm new to blogging but I'm pretty sure that this has been an insanely long blog so if you're still with me, I appreciate it! There have been some positive developments in the past few days that I want to share, but I'll save that for the next entry in our story. It definitely does feel better to get this all out in one place and talk my way through it without expensive therapy!
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