Good Grief!

Ok, I lied. The grief - it's not so good.

Actually, it sucks.

And I am sitting here, turning to one of the only vehicles that has helped me through the rollercoaster of IF, in the desperate hope that it will help me work through these feelings.

I may never give birth to a child created from Mr. LIW and I.

In the early days of purgatory, when I worried that adoption would be our only hope at being parents, I could talk myself through it: there's so many treatment options available to us, perhaps our problem is minor and will be solved quickly, etc. etc.

I have been worried from the beginning (given my incredibly active - fatalistic? - mind) that we would proceed as though our problem was minor, only to find out years later that there's something wrong with our respective eggs and/or sperm.

I am desperately trying to find comfort in the fact that Dr. Gentle is aggressive with treatment options and, though it took a long time to test Mr. LIW's sperm for morphology (his other numbers were good and we were told that the chance of the morphology being low was slight), we now know what we are dealing with. (At least we think we know everything at this point.)

When we first learned that only 2% of a sample of 75 million was normally shaped, we were shocked. Both of us believed that the next test would provide nearly normal results, which would mean that we would have to go through three IUIs before our insurance would approve ivf.

We were literally astounded - floored - by the zero result. According to research that Mr. LIW conducted, viruses can affect this factor, especially in men with varicocele, which is what he has. Since he is fighting a bad cold, we do believe that, though his morphology is probably consistently below normal, zero percent simply cannot be his normal level.

We meet Dr. Gentle again on the 14th. I sense that he agrees with the above assessment since we were told by his nurse to continue with the Clomid/IUI cycle that we are doing despite the results.

I understand that IUIs help to increase the chances of conception since they significantly reduce the distance that the sperm have to travel. But does spinning the sperm provide any advantages to the few that might have normal morphology??

I hate math but 2% of 75 million is still a decent amount of sperm, right? So, if Mr. LIW's samples over the two IUI injections are in that ballpark then we still have a chance.

Of course, if both samples yeild zero percent, then we waste our time and money (in terms of meds and copays and the 10% that our insurance makes us pay for these procedures.)

I am likely to produce three eggs this month since I am back up to the 100mg of the Big C. Maybe one of those normal little sperm will successfully penetrate one of those eggs.

Or, maybe not.

I have been grieving the loss of my fertility for months now. The process has been intensified now that I have Mr. LIW's fertility to grieve as well.

My hope is that my IF is easily corrected and that the miracle of science can solve Mr. LIW's problem (at least in terms of successful fertilization.)

It is possible, right?

RIGHT?

Over dinner and too many cosmopolitans last night, I checked in with Mr. LIW to make sure that he is still committed to adoption, if necessary. We had agreed very early on in our relationship that we would take this route if all else failed.

I literally exhaled when he replied that he is, in fact, still planning to adopt if we cannot have biological child/children.

I am trying to restrain my mind from thinking of how long and grueling that process - after a number of failed ivf attempts - will be. I need to take one step at a time.

All this is happening while I grapple with the news that my consulting hours may be cut back due to the firm's lack of billable clients and prepare to answer the application questions in order to reapply for the federal job.

But I am tripping over my tears, my grief, the pain of it all.