White Knuckled & Worn

The five day embryo maturation process felt like the longest five days of my life. As I stated in my previous post, we had a confirmed 16 eggs gathered during the retrieval procedure and we were ecstatic - we couldn't be happier. When we got home from the procedure, I closed up the blinds in the spare room (Kay's nest, as she calls it) and made sure she had food, lots of water, Gatorade (hydration helps prevent OHSS (Ovarian Hyper-Stimulation Syndrome), and her cell phone. Then I left her to watch "her Dean" on Supernatural and drift in and out of sleep over the course of the day. While Kay was resting I spent the day worrying about the daily phone calls we would get over the next five days. I also worried about her having side effects, about losing all our eggs, about the eggs not fertilizing, pretty much every bad thing I could think of happening. I was excited too though and these mixed emotions had me spinning.

Day 1
The next day we awaited our first dreaded phone call. On the day of retrieval, our eggs were graded in maturity and those that were mature enough to be fertilized, would be. Which means that day two they would be telling us how many of our 16 eggs were mature enough, and how many of those fertilized. The embryologist called Kay that morning and explained that of the 16 eggs that were retrieved, only seven were mature enough to move on to the fertilization process, but that of those seven, we had a 100% fertilization rate. It was a jagged pill to swallow that we had just spent two months, and basically all of our savings, to end up with seven embryos after the first day. We were heartbroken.

Day 2
It was so hard to not focus on the nine eggs that were not mature enough. We waited impatiently for our second call the next day, holding on tight and ready for anything, well almost anything. If they had told us that day that we lost half our embryos, I think we might have lost all hope, but they didn't. On day two the embryologist called and informed us that on a scale from grade 1 to 4 (one being the best and four being the opposite), we had five - class 2 and 3 embryos, one - class 4 embryo, and one embryo had been lost overnight when it turned abnormal. We had moved from 16, to 7, and now down to 6.

Day 3
We were now terrified that there wouldn't be any viable embryos left; they still had to make it to day five to be viable, and day three was the turning point for most people. We were told that a normal rate of attrition for embryos after day three was 25 to 40%! - in short, we were losing our shit. Kay shed many tears between our day two call and our day three call. We started planning for the worst - what would we do if we didn't have any viable embryos left over? Would we do another round of IVF? If so, how were we going to pay for it? All these thoughts were racing through my mind when I left for work that morning, and I waited for the call all morning. When Kay finally called, I picked up the phone and my hand was shaking. All I said was, "So?" Then I realized Kay was crying but before I could say anything she said "We still have 6!" - they all had made it, and Kay's tears, were tears of joy and relief. I was elated.

Day 4
Since we had already been through the toughest part of the maturation process I wasn't all that worried about day four. I breezed through day three and chose to focus on all the good things. I was really starting to get excited for transfer day; just thinking about it put a smile on my face. The thought of making that last trip to the clinic to finally meet our goal and potentially see our dreams come true was too exciting to ignore. That morning we got our day four call from the embryologist, Kay again called me at work to tell me we still had six total embryos! At this stage, we had four grade 2 embryos, one grade 3 embryo, and one embryo that was not yet mature enough to assign a grade to but was still developing.

The relief that we felt after day four and moving into day five was huge. I honestly felt like I'd been holding my breath for a week and I was finally able to relax. We didn't get as many embryos as we had expected, but we potentially did get enough to have as many children as we wanted. Although, depending on who you ask that number changes, I say I want five, Kay says she wants three, but everyone tells me I'll change my mind after the first one. During Kay's mini breakdown before day three I'm pretty sure I heard her mention that she didn't care how many embryos we ended up with, she would keep having kids as long as we had embryos left - maybe it was the hormones, but I'll hold on to hope that it wasn't.

How Would You Like Your Eggs?

I can't say enough about the resilience of my incredible wife; she has been a champ through this entire process. On top of dealing with this crap all on her own, she has had to deal with my insecurities as well. It's been difficult for me to push away this feeling of being a sperm donor being as my job is basically just to show up and make a deposit. Relinquishing the thought of making a baby the natural way has removed any feeling of a connection to the process for me. Kay has recognized the difficulty for me and has worked very hard to include me as closely as possible in the process.

As you read in her previous post, the IVF process required 3-4 self-administered injections per day. Kay was at work for the first injection she had to give herself and in an effort to include me, she made me a video. It included a lot of focused breathing and counting to three several times over while she gathered the courage to stick herself in the belly with her needle full of hormones. I don't think I explained to her how much this video meant to me but it truly did wonders to shorten the distance I felt from Kay's journey.

She took this even further the day she allowed me to administer one of her injections. One of the medications she had to take needed to be mixed prior to use, caused a burning sensation, and had a larger needle. Understandably, she didn't let me administer that injection, but she did allow me to give her the "space needle", because all it required was twisting the controller knob to the correct dose, slowly sticking it into her skin, and pushing down the plunger with my thumb. The level of trust it must have taken for Kay to allow me to do this really confirms for me that we're meant to be together - especially since my hands are prone to shaking when I'm doing fine tasks that require a high level of dexterity.

When she couldn't take a video or let me participate, she would send me emails outlining her day leading up to and explaining her appointments in vivid detail. She would tell me what the doctors were like, how she felt going into the appointments, and the results of tests that she had taken. Communicating isn't a difficult thing to do but it's something that is easy to overlook and the care she took in making me a part of this whole process truly meant the world to me. Although my level of participation in the planning of my wedding might suggest otherwise, I am not a "tell me when to show up" kind of person; I want to be involved and included, and I want to make decisions. Any idiot can provide a sperm sample, it takes something more to be a father - and that's what Kay gave back to me.

After all the injections, and ultrasounds, and blood tests, and appointments, and discomfort, the time finally came for the egg retrieval. We were scheduled for retrieval on a Monday so I had to take that day off work because Kay wouldn't be able to drive due to Fentanyl sedation. She was a little nervous because of this, but I was confident she would breeze through it. We made the all too familiar drive to the downtown clinic and didn't say much for the whole ride. When we got there we sat patiently in the waiting room for the nurse to call us in. When she did, I asked if I should come too, and she said "Yes of course, you're an equally important part of the equation" which put a big smile on my face and definitely calmed my nerves a little bit.

We were led to a room at the far back part of the clinic and Kay was given a pile of clothes and directed to the change room. She came out wearing a gown, a housecoat, a hairnet and some slippers seriously looking like she was wearing a bed and could lay down and fall asleep anywhere. The nurse came in and took Kay's vitals and then the embryologist came in to tell us the process. She would take Kay in and then shortly after another nurse would come and get me so that I could provide my sample which would be used to fertilize the eggs retrieved. They took Kay away and then, as promised, another nurse came to escort me to Andrology. I turned in my last sample, hoping that all my healthy eating, no-booze, exercising, and ball-icing had paid off, and then returned to the waiting room.

I didn't have to wait too long before they came to tell me Kay was in recovery and I could come sit with her. When I got there I was reminded of my surgery that seemed to kick everything off, but in reverse. Kay was drifting in and out of sleep when I sat down beside her bed, she looked at me briefly and said very slowly, "I'm glad you're here, and I want to talk to you, but my words are very heavy." Then she fell asleep again. About a minute later she woke up and said with a very confused look on her face, "Am I wearing a hairnet?", I replied, "No" and she mumbled something about someone taking it off of her before drifting off to sleep again. I sat there for a while behind the curtain, feeling guilty again that she had to go through all of this, when she woke up and looked me straight in the face and said "Am I wearing a hairnet?". I couldn't help but laugh and she was a little put off, but eventually put together that she had asked me the same question about a minute earlier.

The embryologist came in and told us that she did extremely well; she managed to collect 16 eggs and the sperm sample I provided was the highest count yet (about 330K), definitely enough to use to fertilize all the eggs. She told us that she would call us the next day and let us know how many eggs had fertilized to become embryos, and that she would call every day after that  to let us know how many had lasted each day of the maturation process. Once Kay was fully awake we were told we could go. I helped Kay get dressed and escorted her to the car knowing full well that the next week was going to be a very difficult one.

Know When To Hold 'Em

I was recently speaking to a friend who asked me how she should broach the subject of discussing fertility issues with people, which is something that I've thought a lot about since I started writing this blog. Prior to going live and letting basically everyone I know into the most intimate parts of my life I sent an email out to my whole family giving them a summary of what I had been going through, something only my immediate family had been privy to up until that point. I included a link to what I had written so far and offered to answer any questions anybody might have. Of all the emails I sent out, I received back one text message from my cousin offering his support. At first I was hurt and angry; at the time there were a lot of emotions swirling around in my head and I didn't really know where to land. It took me a while to reconcile those emotions and the only way I was able to was by taking a minute to understand where they were coming from.

I come from a semi-private family; and by that I mean they don't want to talk about issues like mine - but they want to know that I'm okay. It's a level of comfort reserved for old-school traditional families - at least mine anyway. The kind of openness it takes to write a blog and tell everyone the experience you had while masturbating into a cup is far beyond the side-conversations prying for information that my family is used to. After I sent out my email to my family, I had expected a bombardment, but what I should have expected is quiet concern, which is what I got, and looking back, meant a whole lot more to me. To my family, it's not your words that show your concern and your love for someone, its your actions - so keeping quiet was their way of respecting my privacy.

What I learned is that if you're looking for support, you need to ask for it. That said, when you're looking for information the principle is the same, but there are a few things that you need to remember.

Everyone is different and so is their journey. There are some people that don't want to talk about their struggle at all, and there are people like myself and K who talk incessantly about our ordeal. This means that when approaching the subject with someone dealing with infertility, you could end up with more than you bargained for, so be concise with your question. For example, if you were to ask me what step we're at in the process, what you're probably meaning to ask is "is she pregnant yet?" but by wanting to be sensitive, you now have an explanation of the actual entire process of IVF on your hands. Why? Because for the most part, in order to understand what step we're in, we likely have to explain the entire process to you which will probably include a list of side discussions required to define certain terms.

There are also many people that have gone through loss, and people that found out they would never even be able to experience that - and every one of those people deals with those situations differently.
So there is a level of sensitivity that you will have to show but if you want to know something - ask. Trust me, if they're not comfortable talking about it, they will tell you that. Keeping that in mind, think about the question before you ask it. Kay had an encounter with a co-worker that consisted of him asking her "Are you ready to deal with your first pregnancy basically being a write-off?" - Kay was confused and asked him what he meant, so he said "You know that most women's first pregnancies result in miscarriage don't you?" I mean, the guy was obviously misinformed, but his message was not the problem. It's the fact that he is asking a woman, who is already having difficulty conceiving, if she is ready to lose her first baby. Dude, the answer is no, and also, no -you idiot. He got off lucky because Kay is not the burst-into-tears-at-work-at-shit-said-by-morons kind of person, but most women, would not have been so understanding.

I think it's also important to mention that unless you're asking for it, it's not your responsibility to navigate the feelings of a person dealing with infertility. Doing so is difficult at that best of times and downright impossible for most others, so in my opinion somebody dealing with infertility shouldn't be making you walk on eggshells around them all the time. If they are, you need to lay your cards on the table and tell them that straight up, but be mindful and supportive when you do it.

How Do You Even "IVF"?

Hi guys! Kay here, get comfortable, you're about to do some learning. Lefty and I have received an overwhelming amount of love and support during our journey to parenthood. So many of our family and friends are so invested in this process, it’s like having our own personal little cheer squad. People also have a lot of questions – after all, IVF isn’t really an everyday topic for a lot of people. This post is going to be a bit of an overview of the process, based on the most frequently asked questions we receive. I do not claim to be an expert, this is just the information I’ve gathered from my research, others going through the process, and some of the staff at the clinic we go to.

IVF refers to the overall $10k process of injecting medications, retrieving eggs, fertilizing them, and growing them in petri dishes for 3-6 days.  FUN FACT: “In Vitro” means “in glass”, so basically, fertilization in a glass petri dish! IVF usually starts with some sort of diagnosis - male infertility, female infertility, or sometimes, unexplained infertility. Of course there are other circumstances such as same-sex couples, or genetic abnormalities, but the idea is the same: we want a baby and we can’t make one the fun way. The doctor overseeing the process is called an “RE” or “Reproductive Endocrinologist”. They make the magic happen.

Photo from: Etsy shop ChiefAndLily

Testing

There is whole bunch of tests anyone contributing any genetic material (read: sperm and eggs) must go through prior to starting fertility treatments. Both/all parties will be tested for an array of Sexually Transmitted Infections, to rule out any “simple” issues caused by something caught during those questionable years in Uni.

Men will undergo:

Semen analysis: (usually several) to assess morphology, concentration, and motility of the little swimmers. If you’re lucky, you can freeze some like we did “just in case” you need it later.

Testing for genetic abnormalities: such as cystic fibrosis, which often causes men to be born without their vas deferens (the little tube that the sperm use to…escape), or XXY syndrome, where a man has an extra copy of the X chromosome which can cause infertility.

Women will undergo:

Blood tests to assess several hormone levels (AMH, FSH): these levels give a good indication of egg quality and reserve (basically, what you’re working with).

Sonohysterogram: a small tube is run through the cervix and saline is injected into the uterus while being viewed on ultrasound to check for any issues with the inside of the uterus, such as fibroids (little tumors made of muscle) or irregular shape of the uterus.

AFC count: this counts your base level follicles (fluid fills “cysts” on the ovaries that contain eggs, usually 1 egg per follicle) on each ovary, to give an indication of how many eggs you can reasonably expect with stimulation.

(There are many more, but I’m only going to talk about what we have gone through, because I have no personal experience with the others.)

Once all the testing is done, and the decision is made to do IVF, you can plan on forking over roughly $10k. Sorry future children, hope you didn’t want to go to college!

Suppression

The woman then goes on some form of suppression (birth control or injectable hormones) to suppress and quiet the ovaries, so that all the follicles can grow at the same rate once they begin stimulation.

Stimulation

Once the woman’s ovaries have been suppressed for 21-35 days, ovarian stimulation begins. Stimulation, or stimming, refers to the daily injection of hormones to promote the growth of multiple follicles/eggs. This phase has to line up with a woman’s natural cycle, so there can be some waiting involved. This includes every-other day (or every day) internal ultrasounds and blood tests to assess hormone levels and follicle size.  

Trigger

Doctors like most follicles to reach 17mm before they “trigger” them to release. The trigger is usually a large dose of HCG (pregnancy hormone) and is injected to promote the maturation of the eggs and the release of the eggs within the follicles. Once triggered, the eggs detach from the inner walls of the follicle and float around inside for about 44 hrs (which would be the upper limit of time).

Retrieval

This step is done by using an ultrasound guided probe to insert a needle through the back wall of the vagina into each ovary to aspirate (suck out) the eggs contained within the follicles, and is usually done exactly 36hrs after trigger. The timing must be precise - too short and the eggs won’t be detached, too long and they will ovulate on their own and be lost.

Egg Fertilization and Embryo Maturation

The eggs are then fertilized and grown in petri dishes for 3-6 days. FUN FACT: Eggs vs Embryos - eggs are just that. Eggs taken from the woman’s ovaries. Embryos are fertilized eggs with the potential to be a baby. The goal is usually to transfer embryos that have reached 5 days of growth, but sometimes they will also let them grow for an additional day, all the way to day-6, to let some slower ones “catch up” (potentially giving you a few more embryos for freeze). The embryologist calls you every day to tell you how your embryos are growing, and a decision is made which and how many embryos to transfer.

Transfer

The number of embryos transferred depends on the woman’s age and how many failed transfers she may have had previously. Once the selection is made, any remaining are usually frozen. The embryo(s) selected will then be placed back in the uterus, and then the finger crossing begins. The difference between a “fresh transfer” and a “frozen transfer” is: a fresh transfer refers to the placement of an embryo back into the woman’s uterus directly after undergoing stimulation, a frozen transfer refers to eggs that have been frozen for later use being placed back into the uterus. About 9 days after a fresh OR frozen transfer, a woman will have her blood drawn to see if the embryo has “stuck”. If so, she is pregnant, yay! Now she waits till she is 12 weeks to make sure the baby is going to “stick”. If not, the couple can wait a few months and try a frozen transfer- if they were lucky enough to have leftover embryos frozen. There is a fee associated with this, but it is substantially less (about $1500). You can do a transfer as many times as you have embryos left. THEN once you run out, you must repeat the whole $10k process again, or look into other options.

TLDR (too long, didn’t read):

-Tests to see why you can’t make babies.

$10k for medication injections to make lots of eggs.

-Eggs taken out and mixed with sperm in petri dish.

-Embryo(s) made and put back into uterus or frozen.

-If the one(s) put back didn’t get you pregnant, try again with frozen.

-If none frozen, $10k again, rinse and repeat.

If you have questions, leave them in the comments below! Lefty and I will do our best to answer them.  We love your feedback, and your continued support!

All the love - Kay.

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'.