Review: My Little Soldiers by Glenn Barden

One unequivocal fact about the infertility scene online is that it's dominated by women. It makes sense; we're the ones who do most of the testing and treatments, we're the ones who can symptom spot, and for the most part we don't mind analyzing sticks other women have peed on. But this is not just our journey, most of us have a man beside us every step of the way. It affects them too and I think a lot of the time we don't realize how much. Being able to see inside a man's head is one of the reasons I loved reading My Little Soldiers by Glenn Barden.

When I was first approached to read this the idea of it being a comedy made me a bit wary. Infertility is not joke and I didn't want to feel laughed at Thankfully my fears were unfounded. A lot of times it's funny in an inside joke kind of way. I can laugh about dildo cams and nasty fertility smoothies because I've been there. Other times the humor doesn't necessarily have anything to do with infertility at all, it's just part of Mike's character. There are a few very serious scenes (as you might expect) and their serious nature is respected. The author doesn't let comedy take away from the heavy topics the nature of this book requires.

Since we've started down this journey it's become painfully obvious that the media doesn't know what it's talking about when it comes to adoption, loss, and infertility. It can become frustrating to be watching TV or reading a book and see them get everything so very wrong. Sometimes they even make things up out of the blue that has no basis in fact at all (I'm looking at you, House of Cards)! I haven't run the full gamut of fertility treatments but what I have experienced rings true. What I've learned from infertility blogs and forums seems to match the description of what I haven't experienced in the book. It even includes a little bit of history regarding treatments and those who developed them along the way. For this reason I think this would be a valuable book not only for infertiles but their friends and family or anyone who doesn't want to remain ignorant of what we go through. And speaking of friends and family, My Little Soldiers does a remarkable job of portraying interactions with fertile people. Unsolicited advice is unsolicited for a reason!

Reading this book made me reevaluate my husband's outward appearance of strength and detachment. For a while now I have been contemplating giving the baby we lost a name. It's been a year and a half since I miscarried and now seems an odd time to name him or her but I think it would help me. I think my child deserves a name. I was scared to bring it up to my husband because what if he thinks it's silly? I still think about our child every single day but what if he doesn't? What if he rejects the notion and calls it ridiculous? I really don't give him enough credit. We talked about it and agreed. We haven't settled on a name yet, but we will - together. This is his journey too and he's just as invested as I am.

Disclosure: I received a free copy of this book for review purposes but all thoughts are my own.

The End: Part II

UP: The most touching 9 minute love story ever.

Well it's Wednesday. Let's see if I can get through this without crying. I apologize in advance if this gets a bit rambly.

On Friday we had DH's urologist appointment. We brought in a sample with us that the doctor was going to look at before coming to see us, so we waited probably about half an hour. This whole time I was in a lot of pain. I had taken a tramadol before we left but it wasn't doing me any good. Many times I thought oh I should have just stayed home, but I'm glad I went. He comes in and says well, your semen is definitely... abnormal (read: terrible). We didn't get the exact numbers but I'm guessing they weren't any better than the last time, if anything they were worse. Apparently DH has incredibly low testosterone. Men his age should have ~827 ng/dL, men 80-100 years old should have ~241 ng/dL, he has a whopping 155 ng/dL. So yeah, that's a problem.

source

Doctor referred us to an endocrinologist and says treatment will make him sterile. After the appointment I did a bit of research and there seems there are treatments for low T that are TTC friendly, specifically Clomid and HCG. I don't know why the urologist didn't think these would be an option for us. He obviously knows we are there for infertility so less sperm isn't really what we're going for. As far as I can tell there are two reasons for low T, primary and secondary. Primary means there is a problem in the testes, whereas secondary means the problem is in the brain. Clomid and HCG may work for secondary but not for primary. See there is this loop where the pituitary gland releases LH which tells the testes to produce testosterone. A small percentage of this testosterone is converted into estrogen which signals the brain to stop producing LH. Clomid works by blocking this signal, causing more LH to be produced whereas HCG acts like extra LH. DH's LH, FSH, and estradiol are all within normal ranges. This leads me to believe that something is going on and he's not producing the right amount of testosterone for the amount of LH being released by his brain. So I don't know if extra LH would help all that much. This may be why the doctor didn't suggest trying these. We have an appointment on the 4th so I will ask more about those options then.

Anyway, with the way DH's sperm are looking he suggested we go see a fertility specialist a state over and do IVF, probably with ICSI. He didn't call it by name but he mentioned a procedure where they inject his sperm into my eggs, so I'm pretty sure that's what he was talking about. He did not see any point in trying IUI. After looking at the success rate I can understand why. IVF only costs slightly more than three IUI cycles and has a better chance than all three put together. If we had the option I know I'd rather try IVF than IUI. Unfortunately, we aren't in the financial place to do either. Once he goes on TRT doing it the old fashion way ceases to be an option and if we want biological kids he has to freeze some sperm first to later be used in IUI or IVF. There is a chance we could skimp and save over the next several months to do one IUI cycle, but it just doesn't seem worth it. I don't know if I want to put my body through even more intense drugs, more stress, more heartache, for such a small chance. For all I know I won't even respond.There is also the fact that we don't even have an RE here. There is one about 2 1/2 hours away that makes occasional visits here but trying to time a cycle around that seems like a nightmare.

So with this news and my continuing pain it looks like TTC has come to a halt. Even if we found out DH had super sperm we'd most likely be going on a break for at least three months, possibly stopping altogether because of my issues. I have an appointment on Wednesday to talk about that. For now I'm trying to come to terms with the fact that my pregnancy in October was our one, short lived miracle. I'm fairly certain at this point I qualify as being depressed. Not eating well, sleeping too much, no longer interested in my hobbies, here it is Wednesday and I haven't even watched last week's Walking Dead yet. I am considering finding some sort of therapist or other qualified person to talk things through with. Plus I took my last provera on Friday and AF still hasn't shown yet so I don't know what that's about. At least if AF never shows we don't have to decide whether to go through with one last cycle or not.

Source: my mom on Facebook.

The End

Well it looks like our journey to a living biological child is over. Any chance I had of experiencing pregnancy for more than a week is basically gone. I know that one day we will adopt or foster or... something, but not for a while yet. Went to the urologist today and was told our only viable chance is IVF (probably with ICSI) which we just can't do financially. We could pursue other options but it would most likely be a waste of time and money. This coupled with my increased amount of pain recently has cemented the fact that it's not worth it. I have an appointment the 27th to see what we need to do now for my health. I will explain better what happened in my regular post on Wednesday, I just can't right now.

When selecting the labels for this post I realized I have no idea what to call this time in my life. We're no longer TTC, we're not actively working towards adoption, but we haven't resolved our infertility either. I need some kind of label for this process of transitioning from actively seeking a child to temporarily no longer being able to do so but I don't know what it is.

Cycle 12 CD11 - SA Results

We got our SA results back today, and there are some problems. Right now the plan is to find a urologist and see what they say. The bad thing about MFI (male factor infertility) is it takes 3+ months after starting treatment before there is any improvement. As I'm kind of on a deadline with my endo this is a problem. If our appointment with the urologist goes favorably I might see about going on Lupron for the 3 months so hopefully my endo won't get any worse while we wait. If it doesn't go well we might just give up on TTC altogether. I have so many problems already, and my miscarriage chance is so high, it might not be worth it just because I want the experience of pregnancy. I don't want to go through another 12 cycles with nothing to show for it. If we give up TTC then I might can go back to school and back to work, especially if I go ahead with a hysterectomy, and we can start saving for adoption. Realistically adoption has always been our best bet for becoming parents. If you're wondering, here are the specifics (normal in parentheses):

pH - 9 (7.2-8.1)

Liquefaction - <30 minutes ( <30 minutes)

Viscosity - Normal

Volume - <0.5 (1.5)
Count - 4 (15)
Initial Motility - 66% (>40%)
Progress Motility - 43 (>32%)
Morphology - 28% (>30%)
Other - Large amount of immature germ cells

So the volume is low, the count is low, and the morphology is low. pH is high but no idea if that is a problem or not. Motility is looking pretty awesome. I have no idea what immature germ cells are.

As for me, things are still good as far as side effects go. Started my OPKs but haven't gotten a positive yet. There is a line though. I think it would be awesome if I ovulated in the next four days as then I could test on my birthday, but don't see that happening. I've been having a wacky sleep pattern (or lack thereof). One day in the past week I literally slept for 23 hours and then the next day I didn't sleep at all, so I'm missing some temps. Hopefully I can get that straightened out before O time.