All I Need is A Miracle

The newest letter arrives and it's not really anything we wanted to hear. Essentially, what the microscope showed us previously is true across the board for my sample. There just aren't enough mobile sperm or correctly shaped sperm present to be conducive for our desires. Dr. K is befuddled by this given my blood tests, but this is what the test showed. Couple that with our ages and the MTHFR problems and the doctor thinks our chances of going the old fashioned route are very, very slim. Not to say it couldn't be accomplished. We've achieved it before. Just that realistically, not very good odds.

 

He wants to talk to us about in vitro because he feels that it would be a very successful process for our case. We've been on the fence regarding this for a bit. Dr. K told us that he really doesn't like going this route because it feels to him as though he failed us. I find comfort in that. We don't feel so alone. He cares so much about helping us accomplish this. We haven't made an appointment yet, but I think we're at least going to go and get the information. And if anyone has an extra $15,000 laying around and wants to clear some space, give us a call! :)

 

 

We've also been giving adoption some serious consideration. This is all in fact collection mode as well. I know there's a long process and financially, there's a cost as well, but we've only just begun to Google and put out feelers.

 

 

Despite all the things that seem like setbacks, I just don't feel like this door is being closed. I know that earlier I wrote very confidently about us having a child. When I look back at that entry, I wonder if some of it comes across as prideful or arrogant. I don't reallly think that it's wrong to pray for a miracle regarding our situation, but I'm not sure if I'm also telling God exactly how He should fulfill that request. Sometimes it feels like holding onto this causes more harm than good. The crushing monthly disappointment is hard for both of us and here I am setting us up for more hardship next month. I'd be lying if I said it doesn't make me second guess what I feel like God is saying. I wonder sometimes if I'm being fair. I continue to pray about it and I still feel like it's a "just wait" kind of scenario.

 

 

We hear so many wonderful stories from amazingly supportive people about other couples who have been in similar situations and God just blessed them with a child that's it hard not to put ourselves in those scenarios. To think that it's going to happen for us in the same, exact way. Quite simply, we'd love to just get pregnant the good, old fashioned way and give birth. Just something incredible that we want to experience together.

 

 

This exercise in patience can be excruciating. I guess the overall point here is where do our hearts lie? Are we dedicated to continuing in prayer over this? To continue trying in this? To accept however God is working here? I know that keeping in constant prayer keeps that relationship open not only between my wife and I, but between us and our Lord. And I know that whatever comes from this, He will be glorified.

Gotta Collect 'Em All!

I spent the rest of the weekend amused about my impending doctor's visit. Monday morning comes and I call the number to the lab/clinic.  The receptionist is right to the point.

"It's $135 and we don't take American Express," she quickly tells me.

Um...ok. I make the appointment for Thursday and get the necessary codes to bill my insurance company.  I'm about to hang up when a question crosses my mind.

"Um, I'll be going over there on my lunch break from work.  Will there be a long wait or anything like that?"

"No, sir.  You'll come in, give us $135, you'll collect, and you're free to go!"

I had to stop myself from chucking like a twelve-year-old at "collect."

Next comes the anxiety:

First off, how much am I supposed to collect exactly?  What if I'm handed some gigantic nine million gallon jug or something?

Furthermore, my time there depends on my collection time.  So, how long is long enough?  I mean, should I just waltz in there, collect, and then BAM! I'm out the door?  Will I be judged?  No, it's probably better that I take a little while, but how long is long enough?  Twenty minutes?  Thirty?

And $135?! I have to PAY someone to do this?!

My wife asks me if I will be ok with all this and I laugh and tell her I got this one.  No prob, babe.  I can handle it. I also think that, despite my first time with the doc, she's had the worst of the experiences.  I just have to collect.

Thursday comes and I head on in to the office.  I have to fill out more paperwork and give them their well-earned $135.  I actually do end up waiting a bit before I'm escorted back.

Now if old, crappy sitcoms have taught me anything, I'm expecting some cold examination room stocked to the gills with porn.  But what I'm led to is more like a glorified bathroom.  On first inspection, I see no porn whatsoever.  Not that I'm looking for porn so I can have some crazy pornapolooza or anything.  It's just what you always hear about this kind of thing.

Anyway, this nurse gives me more paperwork and a small cup wrapped in plastic.  She tells me to write my last name on the side and when I go, to leave the cup on the counter and ring a doorbell that is inside the room, signalling them I have left.

She leaves and I have a seat and finish the paperwork.  I leave to door wide open and start to wonder if I should go ahead and close it.  Full disclosure: it takes me a minute to realize that I should write my name on the side of the cup BEFORE I collect.

I shut the door and that's when I pay attention to a magazine rack that is on the wall.  I didn't give it much thought coming in, as magazines in a doctor's office are Good Housekeeping, Time, and Texas Monthly issues from the last decade.  But these titles are different:

Curiosity gets the best of me and I wonder how recent these are.  I pull a few up to glance at the publication date on the covers.  These are new issues for this month and the last.  My mind starts to wander.  Who goes into the bookstore and picks up the new porn?  Dr. K?  A nurse?   Or do they have a subscription which I guess would be the wiser financial move?

Then I look down and see this:

More things race through my mind. VHS?!  I'm not expecting Blu-Ray on a 72 inch HD plasma surround sound 3-D or anything, but has anyone heard of DVD?  You have current magazines, but VHS tapes from the eighties?   How about a little quality control here?  Even more creepy is this:

I can't even form a theory about why there's a picture book of Scottish golf courses.  Men are sick.

In addition, even if I wanted to, I didn't see a TV with one of those antique VCR's anywhere.  Then I notice this:

Turns out they call this stuff "the kit."  My brain must have been in full stress mode.

Well, to make a long, gross story shorter, time passes and I leave.  But when I leave and for the rest of the day I feel awkward and out-of-place.  All my joking leading up to the appointment has vanished.  Now I'm left with a bad feeling I just can't shake.

Part Two: Just Keep Swimming

There is a film that redefined cinema for a generation.  A movie that raised the bar for the art form.  A motion picture that turns the mirror on our lives and reflects truth back to us.

That film is Pee Wee's Big Adventure.

OK, maybe it's not all of that, but it does come close to cracking my top ten.

Take a look at this clip, where, after just having his prized bicycle stolen from him, Pee Wee is trying to adjust to life without it, deal with its loss, and search desperately for the bike:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4-2NckEAGI]

This perfectly represents what the rest of this afternoon, and sometimes days at a stretch feel like.  Lunch at Chipotle and we see new parents with a baby in a carrier.   A trip to Borders for the new Scott Pilgrim comic and there's babies in strollers, more carriers, crying babies, babies in slings, and my personal favorite, toddlers and children with baby dolls.  And, oh look, coming soon to DVD: Babies!

Don't get me wrong.   I'm not hurt by other people's joy and blessings or jealous of others' familes, at least not anymore.   It's just that after trying so hard, after so many tests and no conclusive actions, and still more tests to come, it just feels sometimes like that yearning for a baby is this huge, empty vacancy.   And everywhere we look are lucky people who get to enjoy something that we are looking at from a distance.   Something we got to taste, but have to find again.

My wife and I discuss our discouragement over lunch.  We feel like we're not making any real progress.   We question whether or not all this is something we should even be doing.  Things really start to fall into place for me. I once listened to a sermon podcast where the pastor said that God always answers prayer.  He says either "Yes, No or Later."   The scriptures he was preaching from was the beginning of Luke: the account of Zachariah and Elizabeth, ironically enough.   The pastor then asks his audience to examine their prayer life for anything they had ceased praying.

Now, I'm not comparing us to that couple.   When it comes to us praying about having a child, I've always gotten a very clear feeling that it's in the "Later" column.   I don't know how or when or by what means, but I feel strongly that it's a "Later" issue.  We are just supposed to hang loose. When we are blessed with a child, there will be no other possible way to tell the story without pointing directly to the glory of the Father.  This child will not be here because of us, prescriptions, procedures, tests, or doctors.   It will be our testimony of the power and glory of God.

I've got an appointment to make.   And Steve and his buddies need swimming lessons. Maybe Dory can help.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmyUkm2qlhA]