Puppies and Parenting

In the very first post I mentioned that in 2016 we welcomed the new addition to our family, a chocolate lab named Ruger. While I am sure children will come with their own set of challenges, I'm not convinced they will be more difficult than raising a Lab puppy. Doing so, however, has really provided me with overwhelmingly more questions than answers when it comes to having kids. The minute I say "Lab", people say "yes they're very high energy" as if they understand something about raising a Lab puppy that I somehow don't. As though I should have known what I was getting myself into and because I was so surprised by how much of an asshole this dog could be, it was my own fault - but I'm convinced my experience is unique and those people truly don't understand. Or maybe I'm full of it and this is exactly what every other Lab owner goes through. Maybe this is what raising kids and listening to other people's opinions will be like - I'll think my experience is somehow different than everyone else's and they couldn't possibly understand what I'm going through, when really I should shut up and listen to what they're telling me.

We picked up our new pup when he was seven weeks old. He screamed, and cried, and wailed when we put him to bed for the first week. His cry was heartbreaking and I slept on the floor by his crate for the first two nights just to keep him company. Getting up every two or three hours at night to take him outside to pee was important because allowing him to mess in his crate was both inhumane, and would reinforce that messing in his crate (or in the house) was okay.

By twelve weeks that intelligent-as-hell dog was sitting on command, but was still under the impression that the entire floor was his bathroom. Our lives ran on a 15 to 20 minute schedule: stop cooking dinner, take the dog out, pause the T.V., take the dog out. Forget about the 20 minute schedule, even for 5 minutes, and you were cleaning up urine. Nothing is more infuriating than a puppy who has been taken outside to pee every 20 minutes for weeks, staring you right in the eye, squatting, and peeing on the floor, without ever breaking eye contact.

He developed such a knack for peeing the minute we turned our heads that a lot of the time we didn't even notice he had peed until we stepped in it, which was compounded by the fact that if you didn't catch him in the act, it was too late to correct him and the learning moment was lost. Is it like this with kids? Do you have to catch them in the act? Or is it possible to sit down a two year old and explain to them the benefits of using the potty instead of the pants? Or is two even the right time to potty train? I remember telling K the other day that if everything goes as planned I'd have to buy a baby book. When she asked me why I responded "Obviously so I can learn how to keep our child alive!"

"Puppy Jail"

We tried everything to get Ruger to stop peeing in the house. We started tethering him to our belts with a leash, which worked really well (although did remind me of those people in the mall that put leashes on their kids), but wasn't always possible. For the times where it wasn't, we put him in a playpen which we dubbed "Puppy Jail". This particular strategy worked really well until he got big enough to push the playpen around the house. In one instance I went upstairs to talk to K about something and came downstairs to find Ruger's playpen panels twisted all up close to the back door (after he had pushed it all the way across the living room) and he was standing in a giant puddle of pee. We took this as a sign that we were on the right track because even though he was confined, he did try to make it to the back door. It also told us it was time to retire his playpen. I feel like the playpen will be my go-to with children, except I think I'll change the name to "Baby Alcatraz" - for some reason "baby jail" flashes images in my head of a baby sitting on the drunk tank floor with a heart tattoo reading "mom" on his forearm, and a half-smoked cigarette hanging out of his mouth...I guess at least at that point we would have taught him some respect for his mother.

The cats never really warmed up to Ruger but that didn't stop him from walking right up to them to sniff them until they ran away. One lovely day my brother came inside with Ruger from taking him out to pee and Ruger surprised our cat Winslow who promptly struck him - with a fully clawed swat - in the eye. His eye was red and swollen and he was in a lot of pain and kept screaming and crying. We immediately packed him up into the car and drove him to the vet who gave us two types of eye drops to be given 4 times a day, and an oral antibiotic to be given twice a day. She also referred us to a veterinary Ophthalmologist (yes that's a thing), who's name was Dr. Woof (I swear I don't make this stuff up) who gave us two additional eye drops on top of the two we were already giving him. About a month and $600 later, Ruger's eye was completely healed, he had no infection, and Dr. Woof said there was no damage to the lens in his eye so he shouldn't have any resulting vision issues.

Of course it was after all this happened that I read about how a puppy's blink reflexes were still developing up to six months of age, so when Winslow swatted him, Ruger didn't automatically blink to protect his eye. While lost in Google-land, I also read an article which explained that how close or far you perceive things to be is something that is learned. I always thought it was something that "just was" like sight itself "just is". Again I was wrong; babies learn depth perception by reaching out and touching and grabbing things. My mind is continually blown by the things I don't know about babies and children, and it honestly scares the shit out of me. Had I known that Ruger's reflexes were still developing, could I have prevented the scratch on his eye? I imagine my future child walking around and slamming into walls because I didn't give it the right kind of toys or place it in the right kind of sleeping position.

It was around this time that peeing in the house became less of an issue and Ruger developed a sudden love of eating random objects. He was always a chewer and we kept a steady supply of interesting chew toys for him to alleviate this, however, chewing wasn't the problem. He started eating and swallowing everything he could find. He dug up the grass and swallowed it attached to clumps of dirt, he pulled used tissues out of the bathroom garbage; basically anything that was within his reach. After K watched him poop out a cat toy we removed all the small cat toys from the premises and our house became endlessly clean. When Christmas came we made sure to put only the big and unbreakable ornaments at the bottom of the tree and we did a damn good job of keeping him away from it, but apparently our luck had run out long before and we didn't even know it.

The night before Christmas Eve Ruger stopped eating and started throwing up every twenty minutes like clockwork. We took him to the emergency vet and sat with him until two in the morning, cleaning up his never-ending supply of vomit before the vet came in and told us they couldn't see anything on his x-ray, but wanted to put him on an IV and monitor him overnight. We left him there that night and after a few hours of not sleeping they called us at 07:00 to tell us they were recommending exploratory surgery. The quote they gave us was for $5000 - Ruger was an asshole, but he was our asshole - so we gave the go-ahead for surgery. We feel very lucky to this day that we had the forethought to get pet insurance the very first day we brought him home - or we likely wouldn't be able to afford our IVF baby now! Our best Christmas gift that year was having Ruger back and healthy - minus the cat toy the size of K's fist that got lodged in his bowel after bouncing around in his stomach for a month. The very same toy I thought I saw in his mouth in November, but was gone by the time I got to him. I hadn't been worried about it because I didn't think there was any possible way he could have a swallowed it. Obviously I was wrong.



I tell myself that raising a child will be easier because they won't be walking immediately and therefore wouldn't be getting into things to eat like my dog does, but I know I'm just deluding myself to make myself feel better about knowing sweet nothing about parenting. I read another article that said not to buy soft blankets for babies because they can cause suffocation. I would have bought my baby the softest blanket I could find! I could have literally suffocated my baby with love! This is why people pair up - because K will be such an amazing mom and I'll just be stumbling around in the dark stubbing my toes on everything in my way.

Since all of this, Ruger has graduated from obedience school and I've started teaching him retrieving skills (which he is amazing at), he listens better, and has found his ability to relax in the house. He relaxes by finding the biggest and hottest sunbeam and basking in its warmth. Ruger is still only 8 months old at this point and I'm not sure all of our issues are in the past - but I have learned a lot - and I'm preparing myself to learn everything I can when it comes to raising a child, but if it's anything like raising a Lab puppy, I'm in for quite the rollercoaster ride.

The Boyfriend Chair

I feel sorry every day that K has to go through all of this because of me. All the magic being drained from the idea of natural conception, never seeing the look of surprise on your partner's face when you tell him he's going to be a father. These are things I feel like I've stolen from her and can't give back; and that's not even taking into consideration the countless uncomfortable procedures, needles, and the costs that come with the fertility treatments.

Even through all of that, she still tells me she can't wait to have a little Lefty running around, with blue eyes and spiky blonde hair like mine, getting into all kinds of trouble - and I know she must love me because she's married to me and she knows how much trouble I can get into. I imagine having a little K too, with long blonde hair, and huge brown eyes that you can see well up with big fat tears when she gets to hold a bunny, or a cat...or any animal at all, because she loves them so much - just like her mom. A curious mini-K that plays with dolls and hosts tea parties, but also wears cowboy boots and helps dad out in the garage, and wants to learn how to change oil and build stuff. Ya, we're both a little baby crazy at this point, but I feel like we've earned the right.

K was booked for a saline ultrasound to have a look inside her uterus to make sure there weren't any fibroids (whatever those are) or cysts inside that could hinder our shot at a successful pregnancy. Since I had the day off I decided to go with her to the appointment and being the supportive husband I am, asked if she would like me to come in with her. She immediately said no, which had me feeling partly relieved, and partly disappointed. Relieved because I really wasn't sure how I felt about seeing my wife, laid out on a table, with the doctor (K's fertility buddies have nicknamed him "Doctor McDreamy") poking around in her undercarriage, and disappointed because I'm genuinely interested in the process and felt like I was missing out. Lucky (and unlucky) for me, while we were in the waiting room, K had a sudden change of heart and decided I could come in with her.

We were escorted to a little change room and K was asked to disrobe below the waist, enter the exam room, sit on the bed, and cover up with the giant napkin. Once K was ready, the nurse came in and noticing that I didn't know what to do with myself directed me to the "husband chair" at the head of the bed (which reminded me subtly of the "boyfriend chair" I had used outside change rooms in my younger years when I was forced to follow my girlfriends around the mall and tell them how great they looked in everything they tried on). Shortly after that the doc came in and I realized that my intuition had been correct on many levels. Watching "McDreamy" messing around under my wife's napkin was just as awkward as I thought it would be. When he took out out the stainless steel speculum I simultaneously felt a sudden rush of gratitude that I was born a dude and wondered if my being there might be just as awkward for him as it was for me. However, when he pulled out the Harry Potter wand and covered it with a condom and a DQ swirl of lube, all the awkwardness faded away and curiosity took over. It was very interesting to see the inside of K's uterus on ultrasound and watch as they slowly injected the giant syringe of saline solution which could be clearly seen on the screen. The doc said this would likely cause some cramping and I kept checking K's face to see if she needed me (like I could do anything about it anyway), but she took it like a champ. Turns out K was still as healthy as a horse (an expression I've never really understood) and the doctor instilled some optimism about our chances of reaching our goal.

After the ultrasound we had some time to kill so I trudged behind K to a Starbucks in the nearby mall where she stocked up on her newly limited single daily dose of caffeine. Then over to the David's Tea, so K could show me her "super-ultra-favorite tea, Just Peachy". And then we wandered through The Bay and looked at furniture, where the "husband chair" seriously started to resemble the "boyfriend chair" before we made our way back to the clinic for our afternoon of injection teaching.

Giving needles isn't a new thing for K, as an EMT it's a big part of her job. Giving them to herself, however, is definitely new territory and with IVF comes several daily self-injections that must be administered on a strict schedule. To help ease some of the responsibility and maybe some of the anxiety of having to jab a needle into herself, I also came with her to injection teaching to learn how to administer her injections (I say that all proud and self-righteous but truthfully I just wanted to learn to give needles). The nurse took us into a little training room and extracted from the cabinet what I call the "Star Trek Needle", a regular syringe, some little mixer things, and the Easy Button.

We started with the space needle, which is a pre-loaded syringe (kind of like an epi-pen) which was super easy to use. Basically you just turn the dial to the correct dose, pop off the cap, "pinch-an-inch" of belly skin, jab the needle in all the way, and push down on the button. Then when you're done, if there wasn't enough medication in the syringe left for a full dose, it calculates and tells you how much of a dose you have to give yourself with your next medication pen. Fancy right?

We moved on to the regular syringe which was a little less intuitive, but K's experience let her breeze through it. It required mixing a powder medication with saline in one of the little mixer things, taking it up in the syringe, and injecting it, again in the belly. I asked the nurse if all the injections were administered in the abdomen, when she said yes, K noticed the disappointed look on my face and made sure to mention to  the nurse that I was sad I didn't get to jab a needle in her bum. Obviously I didn't get to stick K in this training session at all but they gave us a little red hockey puck shown in the picture to inject with the needle. I kept imagining it singing back to us "That Was Easy!".

Snowballin'

Men's testicles are located on the outside of their bodies for a reason, they have the ability to retract and go up towards the body when its cold, as well as to come back down when they need to cool off. This motion serves to regulate the temperature of the testicles because sperm need to stay cooler than regular body temperature to survive. Which is why an undescended testicle like I had (where one of my balls didn't drop) or a retractile testicle (where it has the ability to move between the scrotum and abdomen) can wreak havoc on a man's fertility if it's not corrected. It's also why they tell you not to wear tight fitting underwear, or keep your laptop on your lap, or spend too much time in the hot tub; the heat prevents the nuts from regulating properly and can reduce your sperm count and quality significantly.

 

In previous posts I talked about different things I did to increase my sperm count. Two of those things involved scrotal temperature regulation. The first was to stop wearing boxer briefs to bed at night and start wearing loose-fitting pajamas. The other, was to start what I have come to call Snowballin'. Snowballs are underwear K found online. I'm going to tell you my experience, and give a bit of a review on them.

 

The underwear are tight fitting and they come with a pocket sewn into the front along with a second pair and three ice packs. They're shipped in a nice little box and include an information packet on how to use them. The cost was about $50 US which would be fairly reasonable but with shipping and handling and the exchange rate they ended up being closer to $90 Canadian.

 

The ice packs, or SnowWedges™ as they call them are strange-looking. They look exactly like SportCheck's Firefly logo and the way they fit in (at least the most comfortable way I could figure out after awkwardly reaching down the front of my underwear for 5 minutes) looks to be totally counter intuitive but as it turns out is not bad comfort-wise. You tuck the ice pack down into the front pocket and underneath the scrotum. The idea is that icing your balls can reverse the effects of heat exhaustion from wearing tight underwear, or sitting down all day, or if you're like me sleeping hot. Initially, the cooling can be a little much and I find myself sitting with my legs wide apart  like I'd been riding a horse for a week to alleviate some of the direct contact. The ice packs are really shallow and don't come with a lot of gel inside so they don't last very long, so it's good that the set comes with three ice packs because you can rotate them as they warm up.

 

The underwear itself is relatively comfortable and is made from a soft organic cotton, but I find the waistband digs in a little. Could be I just need to hit the gym though. Since I only wear these in the evening, I haven't put them through any rigorous physical activity but they seem pretty solid and imagine they would hold up well. I'm a little disappointed they only come in the one grey color though.

 

I can't say for sure if it was Snowballin' that caused the increase in my sperm count, but the theory is sound and there are some studies about the positive effects of cooling the testicles. The Snowballs website lists some studies but the studies are relatively small so I would recommend doing your own research. Based on my research I would definitely recommend using this approach in some fashion.

 

That said, although the overall experience of using this product has actually been kind of nice, the price tag, is not. If it wasn't for the exchange rate, that may not be the case, but for now the reality is that I'm pretty sure I could find a used sewing machine, take a sewing lesson, buy the fabric, and sew these myself for cheaper. Or better yet, just get K to sew a pocket into my existing underwear (I could do it, but the quality would be sub-par). Now that I have them though, I'm going to use them, but the cost far outweighs the benefit. I could buy more than 10 full size ice packs for what we paid for these and just ice my boys normally. Or if I was really desperate, I live in Alberta so 9 months out of the year I could walk outside, get some snow and truly be Snowballin'.

Funding Our Little Frankenstein

Unlike K (who had 16 pages of questions), the very first question I had when I started researching IVF was: "How much is this going to cost me?" Once I found out the price tag of 10 to 15 grand the second question I had was : "How in the hell are we going to pay for this?"

The obvious answer was to use credit. We could rack up our credit cards at 14% to 20% interest, we could get a personal loan from the bank, or the clinic even conveniently works with a financier who charges a minimum interest rate of 7.49%. I mean if we were going to go into debt for something I think a child would be worthwhile right? Except for the fact that we had worked incredibly hard up until now to pay down our debt so we could bring a child into the world without too much added financial strain; we really didn't want to let all that hard work go to waste.

So we sat down together, determined to pay up front for at least the first round of IVF (if a second was needed, we'd either be going into debt or selling organs, and I'm already going to be down a nut so my vote goes to K's kidney), and by a few different avenues, I can proudly say we will be able to pay for the treatment without using any additional credit. In this post, I'm going to tell you how we did that.

We Got A Roommate (sort of)
We already had this in place because my big beardy twin brother, D, already lives with us, but when we decided to direct all the funds from his rent money into our savings account, it gave us a major boost in our savings plan. D's plan was to not be around when K was pregnant (I think hormones scare him, which makes sense being as he's a full grown man who will visibly cringe at the thought of the word "crowning") but since we found out we pretty much get to choose when we have the baby, it took some of the pressure off. We had obvious plans for his room once the baby came, but living with my big smelly twin brother isn't so bad. It gives me someone to talk to when K is working night shifts and its kind of a twin-win situation.

Got Another Job
I'm a very busy person, I've recently been forced to admit that I am too involved with too many things, but I found a little bit of time to make some extra cash on the side. I have all kinds of skills, most of them save me money, some cost me money, but only a couple of them have the potential to make me money. One of the money makers is being really good at writing resumes. I have been writing resumes for friends and family for years and have recently made the jump to writing them professionally. I don't charge an arm and a leg, I offer a reasonable rate (mainly because I have a moral issue with gouging people in a bad economy) and I offer a good service for those that don't have the experience to do it themselves. So I took that skill and turned it into baby making bank.

Dipped Into Our Emergency Fund
We were fortunate enough to be able to build up our savings a little bit after our wedding. It wasn't anywhere near the whole amount, but it gave us a head start on our saving plan. I'm no finance expert, but I'd rather dip into my savings a little bit than pay interest on a loan I'm going to have for years. Realistically, this isn't an emergency situation because we really do have the time to save up for IVF if we really wanted to, but when we've already been trying to conceive for 6 months with no success, before we ever even found out about our infertility, we really didn't want to wait.

Sold Some Shit
K and I agreed on a rule, we wouldn't sell anything we knew we would just have to buy again later on (I loved this rule because it saved me from selling any of my tools). K took it upon herself to rummage through our closet and find things she would be willing to part with. She was able to find some really nice dresses and shoes and posted them for sale on our local Facebook buy and sell page. I was actually really surprised at the number of people that will buy other people's used shoes. K suggested selling her wedding dress but I put a stop to that immediately, knowing she would heavily regret that decision. I sacrificed a pair of concert tickets I had purchased months prior. I admit, it had ended up I wasn't able to go anyway, but I got my money back on the tickets and dropped it into our baby bank.

Budgeting
We revamped our budget. We hadn't revisited our budget in a while and when our priorities changed it seemed like a really good time to do that. It was crazy the places we found money. K changed her phone plan and decided that since it was summer, she would rather exercise outside and cancelled her gym membership; boom $100 a month right there. We tightened our belts (both literally and figuratively) by not eating out so much, which saved us a ton of money and inches from our waistlines (I'm probably exaggerating here but let me have it). The biggest part of budgeting was keeping our priorities in mind. We just kept asking ourselves: How bad do we want that baby? What can we live without temporarily? Keeping these things in mind made it so much easier to find money we didn't even know we had.

Checked Our Health Benefits
We are lucky enough to live in Canada, so a lot of our costs were covered just by our government health insurance. In addition to that, K and myself are both lucky enough to be covered by employer extended health benefits. Although our health benefits don't cover IVF, they did cover the long list of medications K has to take for IVF. Our health spending accounts also covered a substantial portion of the costs. These benefits made a significant difference in helping us make our dream a reality. On top of that, we learned that health costs not covered by insurance plans, are eligible for a tax credit, so on next year's taxes we will be able to add that amount to our tax return.

If All Else Fails
Hopefully everything goes well in round one and we won't have to deal with round two, but in the situation where credit becomes the only viable option, at the end of it, we'll have a baby, which will eventually turn into a kid, and then an adult. Which means I'll have 18 years to get our money back from them, with interest! I picture myself saying "University?! You're not going to University!? You have to get a job and pay me back for making you!"

One Nut Wonder

I received a call from the Surgical Oncologist's office much quicker than I did when I had been referred for my hernia surgery, I guess expediency is important when it comes to cancer treatments. They had me scheduled for the consult for the end of March, which would have been about a month and a half past the date of my Radiation Oncology appointment at the Cross Cancer. I was anxious to get it over with and apparently the universe agreed because I received a call on Tuesday, March 7th to tell me they had a cancellation and could get me in the following day. I agreed and took part of the day off work, because I had yet another sperm analysis that day as well and it just made sense.

I was about an hour early for my appointment, had paid for parking, and decided to hang out in the lobby. The building was two or three stories and was occupied pretty much all by health care practitioners except for the daycare on the main floor. I took a seat on a small leather couch and scrolled through my emails feeling guilty for missing work yet again for another appointment. I sat there casually looking up at what seemed like a parade of pregnant women walking by who must have been visiting their OBGYNs for their pregnancy follow-ups - reminding me how much I wanted what they had. I listened to the screams and laughs of the daycare beside me, and watched the day-care workers walk by with kids in little groups singing songs I remembered from when I was a kid. Now that we had sorted out our fertility issues I at least felt like fatherhood was within my grasp so I smiled while I sat there...until I realized I was sitting by myself, next to a daycare, smiling at little children, and felt like a total creeper and decided to go search out my doctor's office.

I found my doctor's name in the directory and climbed the stairs to the second floor before meandering around the halls searching for the right door. I found it at the end of what seemed like a totally deserted hall and pushed it open. I was surprised when the waiting room was so busy and realized that the office was home to a large number of specialists. The waiting room was surrounded by six or seven reception windows and reminded me of a scene from the Ministry of Magic in Harry Potter. Each window had the names of two or three different doctors posted above them and I found the one with my doctor and approached the window. The clerk took my info and handed me a clipboard to fill out with the same standard information as usual; why you're here, medications, past health, family health, surgeries, etc. I completed it fairly quickly and then sat down to wait for my name to be called.

The nurse came and got me and escorted me to an exam room down a back hallway. The surgical resident came in and did her exam before running off to give her report. Shortly after that both the resident and the surgeon walked through the door. My surgeon shook my hand and mentioned that she thought I had been through a lot in the last few months. I nodded and thanked her. I'm not really sure why I thanked her, I guess I appreciated her empathy. It's not that I haven't received any, because the support I've received from people has been overwhelming. I think it was because I didn't get the feeling that she felt sorry for me, like she understood what I was going through better than most; understood, but didn't pity me. I appreciated that.

She started by explaining that although I had been referred to her by the oncologist at the Cross Cancer, I did have options. She asked me about my fertility issues and expressed that she understood that we had been trying to get pregnant for a while. It was at this point that something in the back of my mind started nagging at me. You see, K does a lot of research (on everything, especially things that scare her, which is a lot of things) and me getting cancer scares the shit out of her, so she researches the hell out of it. Then she makes sure she tells me so I can be as thoroughly informed as possible, even though I'd rather stick my head in the sand until the doctors confirm my fears. And of course as it turns out, K had to be right - again - when she told me that the precautionary surgery my oncologist would want to do would require total removal of my left testicle.

They found the tumour on my spermatic cord, which means that it would have to be removed in order to ensure all the cells around the tumour had been removed. Unfortunately, without a spermatic cord, my testicle would no longer have a blood supply and would die, meaning it was coming out too. The surgeon explained my options to me; this type of tumour is very rare and although it is not cancerous, it can act like cancer and spread. Of course there is no way to tell if it will spread until it does, and it could end up anywhere in my body. She said that with the surgery there is a 99% chance I would be cured and never have another problem. Without it, there is a very good chance I could still never have another problem, but we couldn't be sure. So the options are to wait and monitor it and hope for the best, or lefty was getting a new home. Is it weird that I kind of want to keep it? Ya, that’s weird, never mind.

I never really appreciated my balls until I needed them. I mean...I never wanted to get rid of them or anything, but for the majority of my life they were somewhat of an annoyance. When you're a kid, you have to worry about them getting kicked, or your buddy nutting you with the back of his hand; they're a bit of a weakness. As you get older, they become the reason you have to practice safe sex (when you're monogamous anyway, there's so many more when you're not). Then all too quickly, a third of your life is gone and suddenly you need them? If you ask me, irony is a cruel joke, I've never needed my testicle more than I need it right now, while at the same time I have never needed to be rid of my testicle more than I do right now.

Maybe the thoughts circling in my head are just pride, the ones telling me I'd be less of a man after the loss of my testicle. Or maybe I'll be more of a man, with balls of steel...literally; honestly though, that sounds like more of a hassle at the airport than its worth.

Knee-High Socks

Hi Mom! Hi Dad! Hello readers! I’m so happy all 5 of you made it down to read my very first guest post! I’m Kay, Lefty’s more fertile half.  Since our most recent fertility news has more to do with me than Lefty, he asked me to do a super special edition guest post on the blog, to give you some insight from my perspective. Buckle Up!

On March 7, Lefty and I went for our follow-up consult at PCRM to discuss the results of the repeat semen analysis. We were told since the doctor we were initially seeing was gone (mat leave of all things, oh the irony!) we would be seeing someone new.

After providing reception with our IDs and healthcare cards, we were led into one of the cubicle rooms overlooking Jasper Ave, and spent a few minutes trying to decide if this had been THE room in which we had received the news about Lefty’s Highlander swimmer (there can be only one!). After deciding that this was most definitely not the same room and relaxing a bit, Lefty – who is an inherently fidgety person –started leafing through the helpful little info-graphic books they have in each room.

“Sooo, what’s the difference between this one and that one?” he asked, referring to the different types of cycles they run based on your individual fertility issues. Since I’m really into researching (What? You don’t say!), I had a basic idea of what was involved in an IVF cycle, so I did my best to give Lefty a quick run-through of the basics. “Sweet! So do I get to help you with your injections? I want to be as much a part of this process as I can.”

Bless his heart, but between you and I, Lefty has a kind of a…tremor sometimes when he’s trying to do delicate tasks. The thought of him coming at me with various (and numerous) sharp objects over the course of several weeks is on my list of ‘favorite activities’ right between number 776: watching non-stop reruns of my dads old fishing shows and number 778: letting moths swarm me in the dark. I have a completely irrational and uncontrollable fear of moths and butterflies, so this is a real issue for me.

Our new doctor came in shortly after and introduced himself. I immediately liked him; he was totally approachable and easy to talk to. He answered ALL the questions I had written down in my handy-dandy notebook. ALLLLL 47 of them. We talked about timing of IVF and how I had to go on birth control before going into the stimulation phase (Right? Opposite day!). Why you ask? Well apparently they want to quiet the ovaries in order to give the follicles (where the eggs grow) a chance to all grow together, so none get ahead and become over-ripe, so to speak. We also talked about the different drugs I would be on, and the dreaded Progesterone shot I would have to take after the retrieval. “No, we actually don’t use the Progesterone in oil shot,” (Yessss!) “We use the vaginal suppositories.” (Ohhhh…)

He also informed us that Lefty’s latest semen analysis - lucky number 3 - produced a count of 300,000 sperm with a motility of 32% and we were able to freeze 5 more straws! I asked the doctor if 300,000 was enough to just dump the sperm in with some eggs and say “go for it boys!” (Which he got a chuckle out of; apparently the embryologists would not find it as funny. I guess it takes a bit more finesse than that. Who knew?) The doc shook his head, “No sorry, we’ll still have to do the ICSI”.  ICSI - intracytoplasmic sperm injection (say that 10 times fast!) - is the process of injecting a single sperm directly into an egg to pretty much ensure fertilization.

We then talked about how many eggs we would transfer back into me after all the magic happened. Lefty, the doc and I all agreed we would do 1 egg at a time, to decrease the chance of multiples and extend the amount of tries we might have, by not putting in 2 at once and potentially having neither ‘stick’. Given my age (27), he doesn’t foresee any issues with that part, so he wants to be as conservative as possible.

At the end of the consult the doctor asked me if I had done my ‘internal ultrasound’ yet. “Hmmm, that sounds ominous” I thought. Well, let me tell you. I was not wrong. I was led to a change room by a nurse and instructed to remove everything from the waist down, and grab a ‘sheet’ from the cupboard. HAHA, I think they meant giant napkin, because I ripped that thing about 4 times just walking across the room. I sat on the table with the super nifty stirrups and waited. It was about this time that I realized I hadn’t shaved my legs in GOD knows how long (it’s winter!) and immediately regretted my decision not to wear knee-high socks. Buuuut, then that would have been a whole different level of weird and awkward so I decided to suck it up and assume that no one would care because they were doctors after all. Weeeeee! A super invasive and slightly uncomfortable ultrasound was then performed and I got to see my very own uterus and ovaries on live ultrasound TV!

“So you have an retroverted uterus,” the doc said. “Not a big deal, about 1/3 of the population has it. It shouldn’t cause any problems.” So basically my uterus points towards my spine, instead of my belly-button. WEIRD. Apparently this should correct itself when we get a bun in that oven. 

It took him a little while to find my right ovary, but it’s definitely in there (Go me! Matching set!). I was then informed that I had 16 Antral follicles, which is one of the values they use to base how successful they expect to be during retrieval. Evidently, 16 is pretty decent, so we are hoping to get lots of healthy eggs!

Goodbye to the napkin sheet, hello to my own pants, out into reception to get our consent forms, and Lefty and I were 1 step closer to being parents!

Testing Our Resolve

Apart from wanting to be a dad, there are a few other reasons that I'm putting myself through all of this. The biggest is K, she wants to carry a baby and to be a mom, and seeing as she agreed to marry me on the condition of the vows I made to her, it's my responsibility to do the best I can for her and for our family. Additionally, since I'm the reason she has to endure all of this, I figure the least I can do is everything I possibly can to keep that promise. However, until now, I haven't really explained what "everything I possibly can" means, mostly because I'm figuring this out as I go along.

So I'll give it to you straight, and I promise you, it's not pretty. There are a lot of different treatments that can be done to assist an infertile couple get pregnant and they are recommended on an escalatory basis:

To start off with, there's Intrauterine Insemination (IUI) where the doctor would take my sperm sample, wash it, and place it in K's uterus during ovulation, hoping that one of my swimmers would make a break for it and fertilize the egg. This relatively simple procedure costs $400. Unfortunately, this procedure would be recommended in a situation where my sperm was 6 million, not 6. So that's out and we move on to the next.

With oligospermia (low sperm count) the recommendation is to complete a sperm retrieval procedure to go in and get the sperm needed, which can be done in two ways:

The first is an aspiration with a needle, which yes, is exactly how it sounds: a big-ass needle would be inserted into my nut to suck out my soldiers. This procedure, at the time of this post, costs $2000; and would not likely be recommended due to the severity of the absenteeism in my testicles.

The second possible recommendation for sperm retrieval is called MicroTESE. This fun little operation requires "removing the testicle from the scrotum and opening it widely while the patient is under general anesthesia", a direct quote from Calgary's Regional Fertility Program website. I'm probably just being dramatic but a broken can-opener comes to mind when I think of this procedure. What makes it even better, is that the fertility clinic charges $5500 to open this can of oysters and with my count, this is the recommended form of retrieval. Unfortunately, when I called the clinic, I discovered that the clinic in Edmonton doesn't yet offer this surgery, so they would have to refer us to B.C., requiring quite a bit of travel. In addition, the sperm retrieved during MicroTESE is not as mature as the sperm that is collected naturally, so it doesn't freeze nearly as well and K's eggs would have to be harvested the same day the sperm is collected, so we would both have to undergo procedures, on the same day, in another province.

The consult room can crush your dreams,
make them come true, or in my case both.

I'm not going to go into details about the In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) procedures K will have to undergo, but I can tell you it's no picnic. It's a lot of self administered (or administered by me) injections, a lot of invasive examinations, tests, hormones, time spent in appointments, and emotions. So if K has to go through all of this just because of me, you're damn right I can pull up my socks and do what needs doing. To top all of this off, this procedure comes out to $9000 on top of my surgery, and medications, and teaching fees, and sperm tests, and ultrasounds. So basically, $15,000 to $20,000 for a 59% chance at pregnancy...but like I said, with cancer out of the way, we can do anything.

Since all of this would have to be completed at the Burnaby, B.C. clinic, the Edmonton clinic referred our file there, and we were booked for a telephone consult on Thursday, March 2, 2017 with their IVF doctor. Although the added procedural costs and the complications of travelling were weighing heavily on our minds and ramping up our stress levels, we were eager, even excited for our phone consult. The last time we spoke with an IVF doctor, we were so caught off guard we didn't even know what questions to ask. Now, we were ready, and we could have all of our questions answered and get some movement towards our actual goal.

On the day of the phone consult the clinic in Burnaby called me half an hour early. I was a little concerned because K wasn't there yet and I didn't want to start without her. I picked up the phone and it turned out it was the IVF doctor's assistant who was calling me. She said she was calling because the lab in Edmonton contacted their lab and recommended that our file be referred back to Edmonton. I was getting a little annoyed at this point because it felt like I was getting the run around and I had enough of that when dealing with my tumour. I asked "why?" in the most polite voice I could muster and what she told me next shocked me so much that I'm only half certain I didn't utter the words "Shut the fuck up!". She explained that my second semen sample was not only viable for freezing, they had enough to freeze two whole straws of semen! I must have asked her three or four times if she was sure before I actually accepted she was telling me the truth. She followed it up by telling me I wouldn't need the expensive and painful sperm retrieval surgery and all of our procedures could be completed at the Edmonton clinic! I was ecstatic! She said they would be recommending another sperm freeze to get some more and that the Edmonton clinic would be contacting me to book the appointment.

When the call was over I immediately called K and told her the news, she was in complete disbelief. I have no idea if it was the Snowballs, the healthy diet, or the Chinese medicine, but something I did worked. Although IVF would still be required, I had managed to bolster my army from a measly militia of six unwilling fighters, to a force of 100,000 sperm with a motility rate of 29%!