men and infertility

I read this article just now, after being directed to it by www.alittlepregnant.com.  I felt that it was written with incredible sensitivity from this man undergoing ART and finally IVF with his wife for a total of three years, without a positive result, and without great chances.  It shows just how heart-wrenching this process is, and how from the man's perspective, he is able to take other people's jokes and crassness in stride on the surface, and yet...it still affects him.  It makes me wonder if men are perhaps not less sensitive than us, but rather less likely to complain.  Less likely to share.  More likely to just "take it like a man".  I don't want to generalize, but his style of thinking and writing reminded me of my own husband, the man I know best in this lifetime, and I felt deep tenderness towards the strong male who seems that he is just "tagging along for the ride" and in reality experiencing everything just as intensely as the woman.  Including the experience of having a wife who desperately wants children and cannot have them.  (If men want children as intensely, they are better at hiding it from us than we are from them, thus the additional stress is still on them).

I did not think that IVF was a lot harder on me than on him.  We both had our share of stress, and overall it was a pretty pleasant experience.  Not as pleasant as fucking each other's brains out would have been, of course, more along the lines of a root canal, but the doctors were nice, the clinic was comfortable, and we got to travel to Vancouver where I had a wonderful time.  Not much to complain about in my case.  Plus I had some pregnancies coming out of it, which is probably what colours my experience in retrospect.  What I did find very difficult was the infertility itself, the not knowing if I would ever have a child, the incompetent cervix on top of all that making me wonder if I would have a preemie with disabilities to raise and if I was strong enough for that as well.  That is still an issue for us of course, especially now that I have lost the TAC and I will have to get a regular McDonalds next.

I feel blessed every single hour of every single day for having escaped the hell called infertility.  I only now know just how closed I was to the world, how much isolation and hurt I struggled with every day.  I feel like I am filled with light.  And in addition to this immense relief, I have this wonderful baby to love, whose hand right now rests on my breast like a butterfly touch.  And let me tell you, going from hell to heaven without transition is a wild ride.