Ok–so I am finally back with lots of new material to talk about after a much too long hiatus.  I am in the production phase of the “Almost A Father” book after parting ways with my literary agent, and am looking forward to the release of the true story that fuels the fire of what I write on this blog.

I will be back to posting once a week, and will start with an opportunity forwarded to me once again by Resolve Executive Director Barbara Collura who is always on the look out for voices that will speak to the issues affecting the infertility population.

The Good Men Project is a must read for men looking for different voices on all subjects needing a male voice, and Marcus Williams, the editor of this excellent blog posts about his own experiences, as well as those of other men marginalized by the infertility experience.  So here it is, straight fromm the good men site–and here is the link if you want to check out more on The Good Men Project:  http://goodmenproject.com/?s=infertility+rock+star

Interview with a Male Infertility Rock Star

A veteran of many treatments, Denny Ceizyk answers some infertility questions that many men keep to themselves.

4 fertility doctors, 11 embryo transfers, 4 IVFs, $70,000, plenty of therapy, 2 cross country trips to New Jersey one month after the worst terrorist attack in American history, and our last poor quality embryo was thawed, yielding us our now 9 year old (going on 30) daughter Elliana.

That may not make me a rock star, but my six year experience with infertility has provided me with more than the usual 15 minutes of fame since the fateful day I decided to evolve from strong silent type into an outspoken advocate for baby making challenged couples all over the country.

I’ve been interviewed by local newscasters, FM radio disc jockeys, psychology journals, all leading up to an eventual call from a CBS Early News producer to fly my wife and me out to New York City to provide the guy’s view of the journey to medically assisted fatherhood to an audience of millions. I have a literary agent trying to pitch my infertility memoir, and the director of RESOLVE, the largest infertility support organization in the country asking me to speak to these issues, because, well, quite honestly I don’t mind talking about it.

All this is quite amazing considering I made my wife vow never to tell anyone when I first learned I had the sperm count of a hardcore drug addict or cancer patient early in our parenthood pursuits. Looking back, I still feel guilty that the entire time I was going through my obstructionist phases with each stage of infertility denial, my wife, Lisa was searching unsuccessfully for anything written by a guy on fertility websites that could help her understand my behavior, my attitude, my resistance to infertility.

To make up for those strong silent days, I now speak openly to the questions that husbands and wives pursuing medically-assisted parenthood struggle with, in the hopes my words might unclog their souls of all the negativity, sadness and insecurity this insane path to parenthood can often bring, giving them a voice that reassures them: “You are not alone, someone else has been there, and they made it through the storm. You can, too.”

The best thing that ever happened to me, besides marrying my soulmate, was fighting through the jungle of medical fertility science to find our soulbaby. The least I can do is help normalize the very surreal experience of adding a team of doctors to what most people consider the most intimate but life altering thing they will ever do: conceive a child.

Q. Why do men seem to seek out or receive so much less support than women when it comes to infertility?

A. Most guys I’ve talked to never give their ability to procreate a second thought. We just assume that once the time comes, we’ll slip one past the goalie and nine months later we’ll enter the fatherhood phase of our lives.

Sadly, fertility science is showing as guys (and their gals) put off childbearing longer and longer in the name of being financially ready, they increase the odds that a medical third party will be required to help out.

Since medical science has mostly focused on fixing women’s infertility to get the baby growing in her uterus, support ends up being mostly focused on women’s needs, rather than a couple’s needs.

Q. How has male infertility affected your self-image, your “manliness”?

A. “What’s the matter—you shootin’ blanks?” ranks somewhere up there in the male procreation ego with those locker room conversations about whether size really matters. In the case of sperm, how many, how well they swim, and how well they are formed translates to fertility “manliness”.

When I first learned I had a low count, I swore my package was also smaller. Maybe it shrunk like a frightened turtle from all the sudden attention, but I was very aware of my groin after learning my count was subpar.

I was told I had “lazy swimmers” on top of it all, and envisioned fat, potato chip gorging beer swilling sperm waiting for the welfare assistance of fertility treatments.

Of course that wasn’t nearly as bad as the times when “deformities” would appear in the form of pin headed or double headed sperm. I kept wondering if at some point in my past some European relative might have had an ice fishing encounter with one of my wife’s ancestors.

Q. If your partner is infertile, what kind of support have you offered?

A. At first, when it was suspected my wife was the one who was infertile, I offered no support. This was a woman’s thing, the classic cop-out for me to justify not going to any appointments where I had to hear the words ovary, vagina, uterus or fallopian tube.

Of course, that all changed when I finally manned up and filled the old sperm cup in the masturbatorium at the fertility lab. My wife was supportive from day one, and I felt like a schmuck for not being more tender and understanding when issues first came up with her biology. The truth is, she taught me how to be supportive, and I just took it from there.

Q. If you’ve ever had to consider using donors (sperm or eggs), what factors weighed in your decision, and how did you decide?

A. Our second infertility doctor (took us 6 different docs to finally get the job done), wanted to go donor after we failed our second IVF. My guess is we were screwing up his success rates (reported on a national database), so using younger biology has been shown to get the job done quicker.

The problem: my wife wanted to see my eyes in our baby, her chin, hear her grandma’s laugh in the baby’s voice. You know, carry on the family genes. This should never be taken lightly. Much like adoption, you have to be 100% certain that having someone else’s biology, most likely an anonymous college student trying to make extra dollars, is okay with both of you.

Q. If you tried fertility treatments, what role did you take, and did you feel like an active part of it or a bystander?

A. At first for sure a bystander. The words uterus/vagina/fallopian tubes give nails on a chalkboard chills to most guys (I say most guys because I used to run a fertility support group for couples back in my fertility seeking days and we frequently discussed this).

The first time I saw another guy (fertility doctor) put a large condom covered dildo (ultrasound wand) into my wife was just freaking bizarre. I wasn’t sure whether to throw up or start beating the hell out of the doctor.

Q. For people who have no experience with infertility, do you have any advice or words of wisdom for relating to a man or couple who does?

A. Yes: know what you want, and be willing to go the distance for it.

Guys especially need to get this: the whole procreation thing is something only women can do. We are not hard wired to have such a primitive urge to procreate. Why? Because we have no uterus.

I know that seems obvious, but really, think about the urges we get from having a penis and testicles. This country spends millions of dollars in erectile dysfunction advertising dollars to ensure those urges last as long as possible.

Yet a woman has a problem with an organ that was designed specifically to do one thing—grow another human being, and many guys, myself included, get our jockeys in a ruffle if a medical professional is needed to help that organ do what it was meant to do.

Society offers platitudes like “Why don’t you just adopt,” or “Maybe you should just relax,” or “Maybe it’s just not meant to be.” Any couple going through infertility has to be prepared for these well meaning insensitivities, and seek support through the many infertility support networks throughout the country.

Our fertility shrink (yes, there is such a thing now) told us, if they could do better, they would. But if they can’t do better, you may need to surround yourself with other couples going through the same thing until the emotional wounds heal.

Q. How has infertility affected your sex life?

A. The longer we went through it, the worse sex got. The spontaneous, fun, unpredictable beauty of love-making to create our offspring was replaced by the lab rat reality of pee tests to check for pre-ovulation hormones to optimize the timing of my sperm entering her uterus when the eggs were most likely to get there.

After a few months of this, an anvil went down on the part of my brain that controls erections. The libido-crushing red X marks imprisoned in the daily boxes of our monthly calendars produced paralyzing anxiety attacks as I realized we were fast approaching the optimum ovulation time zone.

Eventually we figured out that we had to separate our sex into “fun” non-babymaking sex, and try to get kinky and creative with the science part. For us that meant foreplay and intimacy replaced the “just stick it in before we miss the window” insanity and restored magic to our sex life.

Q. Final question: Was it all worth it?

A. From the moment my daughter clenched her wrinkled red hand around my finger minutes after she was born, to the image of my own face that reflects in brown eyes that look just like mine, I can say nothing I have ever done has moved me quite as deeply as finally achieving fatherhood.

The magnetic force field that binds the souls of my wife and daughter together makes me realize the incredible gift women give to the world when they create life.

I am a better man, a better husband for having evolved beyond my initial objections to medically assisted procreation. To any couple or man wondering if it is worth the struggle to go through infertility I say absolutely, 100%—Hell yes.

Photo credit: Flickr / Robert Bejil Photography

I

I recently posted an opinion about a Person Hood Legislation Initiative in Mississippi that has yielded an interesting response regarding the “ethics” of creating embryos through IVF, and terminating them through abortion.

The response by Karen O’Connell, which I have posted section by section and will continue to address in subsequent posts, brings to light some interesting perceptions, and in my opinion, misconceptions about IVF that I would like to address section by section.

Here is the first paragraph from Ms. O’Connell’s response–the entire response is in the comments section of the last article.

Hello,

I think your perspective is interesting in the issue of the beginning of life.

In fact, in this article I gave you below in part 2 of “the first stage of St-IVF”, they state that they first grow embryos and only cryopreserve the ones that survive to an adequate stage of development (meaning some don’t survive that long and are discarded). Then they use an ultra-rapid cryopreservation that results in some percentage (less than 10) of the frozen embryos being lost. Then they decide which of the remaining “surviving embryos” have good genomes and discard those that have incorrect numbers of chromosomes. They discard those embryos that don’t have the correct number of chromosomes. They’ve now gone through 3 rounds of ‘discarding’ embryos. If you believe that each embryo is a life, a lot of life has now been lost.

http://haveababy.com/embryo-selection/staggered-ivf.html

The first thing that interests me is the selective way she paraphrases the Sher Institute for Reproductive Medicine content to fit her argument that “a lot of life has now been lost” through what she characterizes as rounds of selective embryo discarding.

But before I get to that, I have to note that she leaves out the entire explanation for the embryo selection process, which is to increase the success rate per embryo and allow fewer embryos to be transferred, meaning less possibility of multiple births (which also assures a “safer” pregnancy for the woman).  It also reduces the most common causes of miscarriage in early pregnancy which is the most common cause of early pregnancy loss–another  health benefit to the woman that increases the chances of a successful pregnancy.

Taking a look at the website article she references reveals the  reality that “Round 1” doesn’t involve any discarding of embryos, only an analysis of the DNA to ensure there are no anomalies that could result in an early miscarriage.  She points out that the embryos have to survive to an adequate stage of development or they are discarded.  This is confusing—if they don’t survive to an adequate stage of development, then what would she have the doctors do with them?  They would not be discarding life; they would discarding cells that are no longer alive.

In Round 2, Ms. O’Connell leaves out the fact that the vitrification (freezing) process actually results in a loss of less than 10% of the blastocyst embryos, which means that the survival rate is much higher than “traditional” freezing.  If they do not survive the freeze it would seem then that there was no life in these embryos to be discarded.

That leaves us with Round 3, which is the chromosomal analysis, and here I can see where Ms. O’Connell could rationalize that life is “discarded”, due to chromosomal anomalies that might include Down’s Syndrome.

My wife and I were told during our cycle that we had several “cover of blastocyst embryo” magazine quality embryos during the course of the fresh IVF cycles we did.  The only problem is those embryos did not make it.  Our fresh IVFs resulted in the biggest fat negatives of our BFN experiences.

We were given the option to discard the “low quality” embryos on our last cycle (we did not want nor did we ask for the chromosomal analysis), but absolutely refused to, believing that perhaps the rating scale that had failed us for nearly 6 years up to that point had some flaws.

One of the “poor quality” embryos we ultimately thawed out just turned 9, is thriving in school, is performing in her second year of The Nutcracker, and provides us with the exhaustion and miracle of life as a parent.

The most glaring problem with Ms. O’Connell’s argument is her statement that “if you believe that each embryo is a life, a lot of life has now been lost”.

Each embryo is a “potential” life to a fertility patient, and to medical science.

Even in the best fertility clinic in the country, ½ the time the embryo will not implant and gestate for 9 months.  The media uses the word “implant” incorrectly constantly when referring to the actual medical process of “transferring” the embryos.  Whether they actually “implant” is beyond the control of all of the advanced science fertility clinics have to offer.

The embryo still has to find its way into a spot in the uterus with the perfect mix of hormones and environmental magic to find its roots and then hopefully grow strong enough to emit a strong hormone signaling “I’m here” when the blood beta test is done.

Next Ms. O’Connell says:

Due to this process, I think it is strange you don’t see the connection between Initiative 26 and IVF. You say:

“I see nothing in the language of these bills that in any way states that medically necessary in vitro fertilization techniques are threatened. I’ve discussed this issue with numerous public relations people at various organizations who have asked me to comment on this issue, and the only response I got did not relate to family building through IVF.”

In the process of IVF, they fertilize MANY embryos and discard MANY embryos. If Initiative 26 passes, then each fertilized egg in Mississippi would be constitutionally considered a person and would have the same rights that any other citizen has. Therefore if the amendment is passed, discarding a fertilized egg because it has an abnormal number of chromosomes would be just as large of a crime as killing someone with Downs Syndrome or Fragile X syndrome (fully grown) with an abnormal number of chromosomes.

This statement seems like another selective stretch. Ms. O’Connell does not quantify “MANY” except to capitalize it for dramatic effect.   She refers only to the fertilized embryos with chromosomal abnormalities, but gives no research indicating how many of these embryos are actually identified, much less discarded, nor does she indicate how many of them scientifically would even result in a successful pregnancy.  I’m quite sure the Sher Institute she is quoting from could provide her with actual statistics.

Granted, the mere fact that ANY chromosomally abnormal embryo is discarded might provide fodder for an extreme right to life group to make all medically assisted embryo creation illegal, but they would have to be willing to take the risk of offending 8 million couples who are willing to go to extreme lengths to bring life into this world.   Given how strong the abortion lobby is, I rather doubt they would want to alienate such a strong “family building” population by making their parenthood pursuits illegal.

Part II, will cover Ms. O’Connell’s statement that “Ethically separating IVF from abortion if problematic”.

The statement is so remarkable on its own, that it deserves a post all its own.

Stay tuned.

As I write this on the eve of Elliana’s 9^th birthday, I find myself trying to remember where we were on October 1^st, 2001.

It would have been 10 days before our trip to St. Barnabas for our last all out, no expenses spared effort to finally realize our dream of a biological child.

The recent footage of the 10 year anniversary of 9/11 transported me back to the feelings of doubt I had about going through with the whole journey.  We were facing 3 weeks in New Jersey across the river from the worst terrorist attack in history, all to bring another life into what had become a nightmarishly frightening world.

Yet at the same time, Lisa and always loved October, so I remember being excited at the prospect of fall weather, leaves changing and all of the autumn revelry that is so absent from life in the Tucson desert.  Little did we know that the weather that October would be unseasonably warm for New Jersey, and would not cool off until just a few days before our departure nearly a month later.

I might have been checking our bank account and credit cards to make sure the credit balance would support 3 weeks of hotel, car rental and living expenses ON TOP of the $11,250 IVF procedure we would pay in advance for a the 53% odds of success for Lisa’s age group. Savings would be nearly wiped out, and my commissions would not be coming in as quick without me there to farm for mortgage business.

Lisa and might have been escaping to the movies that night, watching TV, or flipping the channel to steer away from the ever increasing loudness of war drums being thumped as America for prepared for a battle against the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks.

It all seemed so impossible at that time, so uncertain, the true epitome of faith—being sure of what you hope for.

Sitting here tired typing this blog entry after decorating house with some sadness of its lack of inclusion of any princess figures (Selena Gomez was Elliana’s birthday decoration of choice), I quietly celebrate the ten year anniversary of the miracle of October 1^st.

Because on October 1^st, 2001, all we had was hope.  Faith.  Lisa was more sure of it than me.  She never wavered

And now, as the last 10 minutes of Elliana’s amazing 8^th year roll over into the beginning of her 9^th year, I thank God we never gave up.

I also realize how perfect Elliana’s name is again:

Elliana: which means God has answered our prayers.

With her middle name:  Faith.

Resolve recently featured a request for infertility patients to voice their opposition to Initiative 26 which is a personhood legislation, and after reading both arguments for and against, it seems there is some middle ground missing.

Proponents of the measure say they are fighting a battle for human life, and I can’t disagree with that premise.  Having embraced the pulsing visions of rice cake like embryos that we saw on the screen during our many attempts at conception I can’t say that I don’t believe life begins at conception.

That might not be politically correct, but spending so much time on my knees praying that one of those beautiful dividing bunches of cells would implant in Lisa’s uterus removed any doubts I ever had about whether life begins at conception.  In fact, our baby book of Elliana features her rice cake pictures minutes after being thawed out of at the New Jersey fertility clinic they were in for two months after our fresh IVF cycle failed.

The opponents argue that personhood legislation could result in IVF becoming illegal.

That’s where I get lost.

I see nothing in the language of these bills that in any way states that medically necessary in vitro fertilization techniques are threatened.  I’ve discussed this issue with numerous public relations people at various organizations who have asked me to comment on this issue, and the only response I got did not relate to family building through IVF.

The real issue seems to be abortion rights.

Now I am not going to tackle that issue on this blog, but both sides of the argument are being disingenuous with their arguments if they are using in vitro as a way to promote their political agendas regarding abortion.

So here is what I propose.

To appease the concerns of the growing medically challenged population of parenthood seeking couples in the world, the supporters of personhood measures should unequivocally state that they DO NOT support any restrictions on any medically assisted reproductive procedure, period.

I can only hope that the Christian organizations writing these policies are not of the opinion that because the Bible describes very clearly that we are people within the womb, that somehow means that a couple that cannot conceive naturally is somehow sinning by seeking the help of a doctor to conceive.

That would be like saying someone who has cancer should simply let God’s will play out, instead of considering that perhaps God inspired infertility doctors to help us continue to enjoy the miracle of conception amid the mess we’ve made of our reproductive systems due to everything from environmental to personal career choices that run counter to our procreative biology.

To the opponents who say that the personhood legislation could make IVF illegal, I would have to ask  this: if the measures are rewritten to explicitly exclude anything related to reproductive medicine, will they gain the support of the family building community?

I can only hope the answer from all of the reproductive organizations is an unwavering “yes”.

Otherwise I fear family building is being used by both opponents and proponents of personhood legislation to promote political agendas related to abortion, and that is not fair to any of 7 million or so couples trying to conceive.

I was reading the Fall 2011 Resolve newsletter and came across Lynn Taylor’s article about “The Power of Your Story”.

I would like to speak to the return on investment that our community has received as a result of one former infertility patient turned community volunteer extraordinaire: my wife, Lisa.

Her passion for pursuing the spirit of our baby for six years, has turned into a passion for providing the best education for our now almost 9 year-old-daughter by volunteering and supporting the teachers and administrative staff of the school she attends.

Lisa volunteers to help kids with their reading, helps coordinate support for every grade (even the ones our daughter is not in), and takes on leadership roles whenever a need arises.

When I ask her why she does it, the answer comes easily: “I’m living my dream.”

And Lisa’s ‘living her dream’ attitude keeps the school from having to add teaching assistants to the budget, or forego special events for lack of budget for support staff, or see a child fall through the cracks simply because he/she needs a little extra help that the growing class sizes in public and private education in this country don’t allow for.

So how does this contribute to the community?

Working parents can track the performance of their children in school if a volunteer assistant grades papers that might otherwise get backlogged.

Kids can enjoy special events and parties that reward them for their hard work so they are motivated, refreshed and excited about school since there is a person organizing and motivating volunteer help for these events.

The child that needs the extra help gets it, and the parents of that child don’t end up spending money on tutors when all the child likely needs a little more time to understand a concept.

These children perform better on tests, retain the material they are taught longer, and tend to participate more in school.

Seeing their children excel, more parents become involved in the school, the volunteer base grows, and the need to budget for basic needs is replaced by the ability to expand education offerings into things like arts, music, creative writing—things that allow kids to develop their unique voice and cultivate individuality, while they continue to learn the basic educational concepts they need to live a productive life.

A tax credit that enables more super aspiring moms to become super moms like my wife Lisa, is a win win for everyone, in any community, for any constituency.

Hopefully the legislative powers that be will get their Act together, and support the Family Act 2011.

There are going to be days when the anger and frustration you feel are overwhelming.  Praying may not ease the burden.  On these days everything everyone says will be the wrong thing.

I have two words of advice:

Blame Canada.

I don’t want you to really blame Canada.  But you may find levity in the crass politically incorrect humor of a show like Southpark, or any other type of off color humor that suddenly becomes incredibly comforting when you have those moments you think you could commit a crime against your reproductive doctor for not getting you pregnant…again.

About 5 failed IUIs and a 2^nd failed IVF into our fertility journey I was nurturing some very unhealthy feelings and anger towards our RE.   He had recently become defensive during a consult when I became hostile about why we had failed yet another $10,000 IVF cycle.  He apparently felt the need to take it out on my sperm—with a 3 minute tirade during which he exclaimed that my sperm was “lousy” no less than 5 times while Lisa’s eyes welled up with tears as he even threw in the added insult that perhaps it was time for us to consider donors.

Concerned about the detailed plan I was hatching to kneecap the insensitive schwanker, one of the other guys in our fertility support group insisted I would love South Park. After the first five minutes of the crass, off color but incredibly socially accurate portrayals of everything from out of touch over bearing helicopter parents, to the current “blame game” generation that seems unable to accept responsibility for finding any answers to the many plaguing problems of life in the US, I was hooked.

Yes, the show contains some of the coarsest language that you will hear, and there are times when I had to shut if off because it went over the top.

But other times I couldn’t help laughing my butt off.

I could hear myself saying to our infertility specialist after a failed cycle “You killed our chances of having a baby this month—you bastard!”

This is a much healthier, and less conducive to a future criminal record way of dealing with anger issues that are bound to arise for us strong silent types when the dark side starts to beckon us to exact revenge on the evil endocrine empire.

That crass comedic escape often gave Lisa and I the levity we needed to not take our failed fertility pursuits so seriously, and gave our aching hearts a much needed laugh out loud healing moment.

So if all else fails, and you think you have lost all control:

BLAME CANADA!

Picking up a few groceries today at the neighborhood Walmart, I am reminded again of the idiot factor’s presence in the universe.

I had first encountered it not long after Lisa and I failed our first batch of fertility procedures.

It seemed that many people that were the least qualified were getting pregnant by the dozens. The more belligerent males I came across in these situations would say “I look at her and she gets pregnant”. Usually that was followed by, “So, you what’s the deal with you and your wife? You shootin’ blanks?”

My eyes would glaze over while I contemplated a Mel Gibson rage attack on them. Fortunately my therapist’s “if they could do better they would” tool dialed back my urge to do physical harm to this particular breed of Neanderthal, and I opted instead to add them to my list of people who had become victims of the idiot factor.

It is a simple natural phenomena that most infertility patients understand—the more the idiot factor is present, the more likely the couple is to get pregnant.

Now that we have had a child for 8 years, you would think the idiot factor has no influence over my life.

Wrong.

I am in the checkout line, and this young girl, I would say maybe 19 is screaming at 3 kids. One has a diaper with dried mushed turd squeezing out that is way overdue to be changed, the 2 year old is eating a bag of M & Ms, and the three year old has a nice snot bubble inflated above the crusty snot dried just above her top lip. The mom’s boyfriend possible father of the children is playing Tetris on his Iphone, and he slaps away the 3 year old’s attempts at getting his attention.

Lisa and I had hoped that after Elliana was born, we would have a surprise baby sibling. Eight years later, our chances of that random occurrence have been met with the unwelcome regular appearance of Aunt Flo.

Yet the young couple in front of me have been blessed with 3 apparently consecutive children.

The old familiar pang of something between jealousy and pity resonates as I realize the idiot factor has struck again.

I want to tell this young mom how lucky she is to have three kids naturally. Tell Tetris-boy to pay attention to his three year old because she won’t care about getting his attention in the not too distant future. Tell them that their little brood is a miracle of nature that they should treasure, because for some people having a child takes every spiritual, physical, mental and emotional ounce of energy they have.

But I know better than to ever open my mouth.

The idiot factor comes with its price, and I see its toll exacted on this overwhelmed, under supported family.

The mucus crusted toddler notices me looking at her.

I raise my eyebrows and cross my eyes.

Tetris boy hears her giggle, and glances away from his Iphone as his daughter lets out another hearty laugh.

He puts his phone back in his pocket, and picks her up.

Kisses her gently on the head.

She gives him a big bear hug.

In that moment, the idiot factor loses some of its power.

I recently got an email from a reader who is completely frustrated by the communication Grand Canyon he has entered after multiple fertility failures. I know he was probably looking for advice…some nugget of wisdom that would suddenly build a bridge of common ground between him and his grieving wife.

The thing is, reading his email, I couldn’t find anything wrong with how he was treating his wife.  He seemed to be emotionally available, was trying to give her space to deal with the failed cycles, but be there if she needed someone to be a sounding board or a punching bag.

Yet, he felt like he could do no right.

And the truth is he is probably right.

Every couple going through infertility loses perspective at some point.  The differences in the biology of a man and woman are never more clearly demonstrated than when a fertility cycle fails.

When Lisa would get her period after a failed cycle, she would withdraw.  I would try to comfort her with a hug or kiss but often she would recoil.  It was as if the physical injury to her body of failing to conceive made her unable to deal with physical contact.  Or maybe she just wanted to be left the hell alone.

The problem is, as soon as I backed off, it seemed that I was suddenly labeled a distant, uninvolved, uncaring ass who really didn’t understand anything.  I cared more about work, about my problems and couldn’t hope to understand what Lisa needed.

There was a point where the problem became so severe that I worried for the first time in our married life if we would survive.  On a regular basis the back of my skull felt like it was going to explode, and Lisa never left the infertility research literature long enough to discuss the fact that we were in a very precarious place in our relationship.

Up until that point, I had never had an open mind about therapy.  My impression was that only weak people needed to talk about their problems with a third party.  Plus, the only reason shrinks got into business was to prescribe anti depressants and do past life regressions, and that would not help my sperm penetrate Lisa’s egg to cause a conception that would stick for 9 months.

But I went to the psychologist anyway.

Actually, I take that back.  We went to a poorly run support group at our fertility doctors office first, where the therapist had no understanding of any of the acronym-speak of fertility and spent more time asking what the acronyms meant than how we felt about the fact that they kept failing.  And to ensure that we never returned to the group-the therapist allowed the child of a secondary infertility patient to wander around screaming in a roomful of otherwise primary infertility couples.

After that disaster, we got in touch with Dr. Bergen.  She had been through infertility, understood the language, and had dealt with her own losses, which she openly discussed.

What we learned in that first therapy session was simple: we had to find perspective.

How did we do it?

By being thankful and mindful.

Yep—I know—psychological gobbledy gook and we resented the first five minutes of acknowledging that we were thankful for the comfortable leather chair we were sitting in, the beautiful 62 degree January air outside, and the incredibly authentic Buffalo style Anchor Bar wings we had at Friday’s that afternoon after therapy.

But damned if it didn’t get our minds off of fertility for awhile.

The therapist taught us that the reality of our biology was that we aren’t really hardwired to deal with a constant state of stress.  We need moments of release, relaxation, and distance to persevere through any hardship.  Otherwise, meltdown, break down and even permanent damage can be done to even the strongest of marriages.

In the moments of thinking about something other than a positive beta and being thankful for the life we had prior to parenthood, we found the Grand Canyon was replaced by that magical bridge that suddenly appeared like it did for Indiana Jones when he took that step of faith.

And that step of faith led us together, ultimately, to our baby’s spirit.

It is difficult to believe that our formerly poor quality embryo has just entered the third grade.

I can still remember the pangs of yearning that I would feel this time of year as I watched the bleary eyed kids lined up at bus stops, nervously chattering with friends, or clinging to their parents for dear life.

I would slow down at the 15 mile an hour zones, wondering when the day would come that I would be making that turn over the speed bumps into the drop off circle to deliver my child into the education system.

This morning was dramatic, heartbreaking, exciting and miraculous all at once.

The drama came when Elliana didn’t get the teacher she had hoped for.  It was exacerbated by the fact that half of the friends from the year before went into that very teacher’s class.  The finishing touch was the principal’s mispronouncing Elli’s name–which wouldn’t been so bad if she hadn’t pronounced a BOY’S name (Eli).

I was heartbroken for her as she cried watching her friends line up in the line she visualized herself in the past few weeks.  I heard the helicopter rotors begin to spin as Lisa planned operation ream the principal’s butt.

The drama of the morning was calmed with heartfelt apologies from the principal, a review of the roster revealing the cause of the “Eli” mispronunciation, and a very loving teacher that by the end of the day, Elliana is absolutely thrilled with.

The excitement in Elliana’s voice as she described the “spy” theme of the class events made me realize how crazy, tragic and wonderful the world can be.

That little chattering former kidsicle in a freezer in New Jersey is a miraculous creation.  I laugh thinking that stubborn little embryo that our reproductive endrinologist struggled to get out of the catheter when she was transferred into Lisa more than nine years ago, is now so independent and brave.

I silently thank God for giving me the wisdom to see beyond my own frustration with all those years of infertility treatments.   If I hadn’t stuck it out, I wouldn’t be taking that turn into the school, easing over those speed bumps, to drop my daughter off for the beginning of her third grade days.

Without a doubt the hardest thing for us “strong silent” types to handle is what to do when it all falls apart whether it be a miscarriage or a failed infertility cycle.

Instinctively, we want to fix it, we want exact revenge on the party that inflicted pain on our loved one, and we want to develop a game plan to achieve success.

Most of time this is exactly what our loved one DOESN’T need.

About 4 or 5 years into our parenthood pursuits, the mere utterance of any response, whether it be supportive or defensive was like nail on a chalkboard to Lisa.  I didn’t get it.

“I’m on your side!” I would scream and she would run out of the room in tears screaming I didn’t understand along with some other expletives that essentially described what a jerk I was.

Our first miscarriage was devastating. It happened one week before our 10^th wedding anniversary, and against doctors orders, Lisa and I made our trek up Highway 101 staying at bed and breakfasts all the way up to Napa to celebrate a decade of marriage together.

While we were in La Jolla, Lisa walked into a little strip mall, and a lady in a new age shop began chatting with her.  I didn’t pay much attention to them, until Lisa walked out of the shop sobbing.

When I asked her what it was, she told me the woman had put her hand on Lisa’s stomach and said “you’re holding onto this baby”.  That’s when it hit me.

Every time Lisa changed her pad, she was seeing a part of our baby dying.  I realized how trite and almost moronic my words, game plans and revenge plots must have seemed to her.

I posted recently the words to a song that I wrote a few months after that –So Far So Good, that was recently featured in Resolve’s summer newsletter that was inspired by the spirit of the baby we lost that year.

For some reason, after that, it became easier for me to express my feelings in writing and music, than verbally with Lisa when it came to the topic of grieving a fertility related loss.  I think it works for me because the process of creating a song is connected spiritually– in a similar way that the spirit of an unborn baby connects with a woman trying to create a child.

I finally managed to break months of silence and begin the healing, when I wrote the lyrics to a song called “A Soft Place To Fall”.  The “he” in the song referenced the baby we lost on our tenth anniversary.  We were always sure that baby was a boy, and I was finally able to reconnect to Lisa when she heard the song for the first time.

Really, at the end of the day, I think the best thing we can do as guys is keep our mouths shut, and provide a “soft place to fall” for the tears that inevitably follow the loss of potential motherhood.

Here are the lyrics:

A SOFT PLACE TO FALL

I always thought I knew how to get you through

Times when you were feeling your heart break

But tears still fill your eyes since he said goodbye

No matter what I say or do

I know there’s no way I can fill up the space

His leaving has left in your soul

One thing I can do is give my shoulder to you

When you feel like you’re losing it all

So your tears always have

A soft place to fall

Don’t get me wrong—I know you’re strong

I’m sure you can survive this on your own

But your secret’s safe with me if you feel a little weak

And just don’t want to be alone

I know there’s no way I can fill up the space

His leaving has left in your soul

One thing I can do is give my shoulder to you

When you feel like you’re losing it all

So your tears always have

A soft place to fall

If I had wings I’d fly straight to heaven’s gate

Offer up my soul in trade if God would take your pain away

I know there’s no way I can fill up the space

His leaving has left in your soul

One thing I can do is give my shoulder to you

When you feel like you’re losing it all

So your tears always have

A soft place to fall

© Words and Music Denny Ceizyk 2001