Are You and Your Partner on the Same Page?

You have to put on the big girl panties for infertility.  I’m sorry, that’s just the way it is. So, I went to Walmart for you.

Here’s a pair,

Are you and your partner on the same page?

Privacy
Sex is, for the most part(I don’t know what you do at your house LOL), a private matter.  It is rarely a subject that is realistically discussed in groups or even with family members, so the fact that your sexual life will have to be laid out for the ears of doctors, specialists and other medical staff, may be a very hard thing for your spouse to deal with.  While you may feel that these discussions are only a means to an ends, you have to take into consideration that this is an embarrassing and stalling situation for a man.  If he tenses up at the thought of visiting yet another potential doctor, don’t get frustrated with him,he’s not the enemy.  Try and remember that his feelings are wrapped up in this too, and as we should all know, embarrassment is libido kryptonite.

Pride and Guilt
For whatever reason, dating back centuries, pride is attached to procreation.  As though it is any work of ours that cells begin dividing, and organs form, and muscles begin to join to bones; we tend to think that the miracle of life is one that we took some great part in.  Cool your heels Tonto, all you did was you-know-what, so I don’t know where you got this false sense of pride.  But anyway, because of that pride, there is a great amount of guilt associated with infertility.  The fact that he can’t “be a man” or that you can’t “be a woman”, adds unnecessary grief to an already touchy subject.  His resistance to visit a doctor can usually be directly related to the belief that he may find out that the problem is his own.  And whoever’s problem it is, is immediately labeled the villain.  The “REASON” that you aren’t pregnant.  As awful as it sounds, many men are resolved to believe that women are the guilty party, and are more than reluctant to want to find out otherwise.  Also, if either of you already believe yourself to be “the reason”, the guilt of keeping your spouse from what they want most in life, can make you feel awful, and when someone doesn’t feel their best, the thought of “gittin ‘er done”, is far away.  It becomes a personal situation that is very hard to articulate to someone you love.  Knowing how to honestly say how you feel about your fertility, and knowing how to listen to how he feels can not only bring you closer, but relieve some of the stress that could in fact be adding to the situation.

Where Did the Fun Go?
You’ve seen the movies and television episodes.  Some nagging wife is at home in a silk robe with her feet up in the air waiting for “the time”, so that she can call her poor husband, who is probably somewhere working or hanging out with his friends, so that he can rush home.  The poor stiff, (no pun intended), usually looks over at his friends and makes some snide remark about how his wife is trying to get pregnant, to which his friends laugh, and he takes off.

Here’s Samuel L. Jackson to illustrate what I think of that over-used scenario,

While charting and temping ovulation does increase the chances of getting pregnant, tell that malarkey to homegirl who just happened to miss a pill that one time and popped out twins 9 months later.  We’ve all heard it, let’s say it together, shall we? “As soon as you relax, it’ll happen”….There, we said it.  Yay, us.  Now, usually, that phrase is enough to make me and most other infertile folk go apesh*t on someone, but in this situation, its warranted.  If you take all the fun out of the situation, you have made it a chore, and whose husband really likes doing chores?  Calmly provide an opportunity for him to tell you if he’s feeling bored by the necessity of it all. Stop nagging and buy some pasties for goodness sakes, give the guy a break.

How Long?
By definition, infertility is the failure to achieve or maintain pregnancy after a year of “trying”.  That means that by the time you get started actively fighting it, you’ve already been in the trenches for twelve months.  Tack on the time it takes for cycles to complete and medicines to take effect, and you could be two or three years in this thing before you know it.  Have you talked to each other about if and when you are going to hang up the old fertility banner?  I know that when you’re really feeling motivated and you just want to put your best foot forward, thinking about failure or succession seems like the farthest thing, but here’s another opportunity for you to show off your shiny new Big Girl Panties.  You have to talk about what your limits are going to be.  Are you going to set a certain amount of years or would you rather put a financial cap on things?  Are you going to be the final say in putting on the brakes or do both of you have to say enough? Knowing these things in advance, though not necessarily setting them in stone, can help you avoid painful discussions later on when you REALLY aren’t going to feel like having them.

How much is this thing gonna cost me?
Ah, the dreaded financials of it all.  Saved the best for last, didn’t I?  Let’s just be honest, as with weddings, home buying, or anything other than technology; women are researchers and men are movers.  Women are usually going to go to the books and find out all they need to do to prepare their arsenal while men are going to sit back and wait for you to tell them what goes where and how much is it gonna cost.  Don’t expect anything different with planning for your family.  Just because you read every book about fertility that you could get your hands on, and have a pretty good idea about how many THOUSANDS of dollars this thing really breaks down to, your boo has no idea.  So when you start telling him how much some of you meds and treatments cost, or worse yet, when he sees the bill, he’s allowed to go a bit batty.  Tell the truth, you had a conniption when you saw the figures too, didn’t you?  It is of the UTMOST importance that the two of you get to an agreement and mutual understanding of how much this could potentially cost, what you are able to afford, and then what you are actually WILLING to afford.  Here is another time that you may find you aren’t on the same page because while you may be thinking, “Money is no object!”, he may be thinking, “After $40,000, we are officially childless by choice”.

These are the highest topics I feel should be primarily discussed by any couple heading down infertility lane.  Some other things that should come up a little later are:

• Adoption beliefs – Will Adoption be placed on the table at all?  If so, do you both agree on domestic or foreign?  Will ethnicity play any part in your adoption process?
• Surrogacy, Egg Adoption, Foster Care etc.  – Are these options that you both feel the same about?  Are you willing to go these routes?  What are your concerns, fears, or misconceptions?
• Visibility – Just because you’re gung-ho about shouting to the mountains about your family-building challenges, you need to remember that this is not just your fight.  Is he okay with you telling EVERYONE that you all are having issues?  If you feel that your being as open as possible is your way of having some control over your fertility, you need to tell him that.  If he feels it is too painful, you should respect that too.