Mama Bird Box Blog

The Infertility Journey: A Male’s Perspective

With this week being National Infertility Awareness Week we wanted to take a moment to discuss the struggle for some to conceive. Nick from Bottles & Banter gives insight into his journey through infertility.

There are several things people “know” right off the bat when it comes to family planning, conception, and infertility.

It’s a women’s issue, certainly not for men to discuss
Infertility is all about the woman
Men are along for the ride – when the woman wants a child, the couple wants a child
Adopting is apparently the same thing as a “normal” or “natural” child

At the beginning of a relationship there is always a process. First you date. Get married. Then you have kids. In that order. When you are dating, the natural question at weddings is “you’re next, when are you putting a ring on it?” from some nosey person. Chill, bro. Don’t try to press me. Then at your wedding or a baby shower or really whenever someone wants to know about your sex life, they ask “when are you finally going to have a baby?” incessantly. I always wanted to ask if they were having unprotected intercourse. But I digress.

The First Steps

The first thing you hear all the time is the whole “not trying, but not trying not to” routine. Really, I think it’s just something us guys say because we don’t want to look too eager to get into the parenting thing. Especially for younger couples, it’s easier to say that than to hear “you have your whole life” when you say you want kids now. But let’s face it, you want kids and you really are giving it the old college try.

Mood: Great. Sex all the time, no more worrying about birth control or any of that business. Just… fun.

Should It Take This Long?

I was told basically from birth that “If you have sex, you will get her pregnant.” You totally expect it’ll be quick! Two, maybe three months at most? You spend your whole young life trying to avoid pregnancy like the plague. Surely it’ll be happening soon. Like, really soon. Let’s give it a few months. What people don’t commonly know is that your odds of conception are only 20-25% each month for the healthiest of people.

Mood: Still pretty good. Because, sex, you know? But maybe we should try something different

Ok – Really, Let’s ACTUALLY Start Trying

This is where the research comes in. Basal body temps, special lubrication, eating healthier, cutting booze, monitoring cycles, etc. The list goes on. We’re coming up on 7-8 months of not trying, let’s actually put a plan in place. We’re smart people, we can handle this.

Mood: Well, this is slightly annoying. Still, sex. But now it’s planned. And that’s not so exciting.

Infertility – The Dreaded Word

We’re up on 12 months of trying, which is “infertility” by the medical definition. Trying naturally for 12 months without achieving pregnancy is when you have an official diagnosis of infertility. We already knew it was headed that way, but it still sucks going to the Reproductive Endocrinologist (RE) for the first time. For Brittany, it was her feeling like a failure. This goes back to the beginning rule: infertility is a women’s issue.

For us guys, our experience is much different than the woman’s experience at the doctor. Doctors, nurses, insurance people, etc. all try their best to include then males, but at clinics, the woman is the patient. The woman gets the tests. She has to talk to insurance because the husband isn’t a patient. But we are! Our infertility hasn’t been diagnosed by any means. 33% of all fertility related issues are male factor, 33% are female factor, and 33% are a combination of male/female factor infertility. For me, that was the most frustrating part. Not being talked to as a patient but as the support. I could be there or not, they’d just need my sample a dozen times or so.

Mood: This is such crap. But we just took steps that will surely put things back on track. We’re taking charge, here. Bringing in the experts. As the guy, I might be ignored a bit, but it’s worth it. Also, if you ever posted a baby picture on Facebook, I hated you and probably hid you from my timeline. You’ve since been re-added and I’ve caught up on your awesome journey through parenthood.

On to the Treatments!

Monitoring. Blood tests. Shots. Lots and lots of shots. Have you ever been jealous of someone getting a shot or blood drawn or anything? It’s a very strange experience. If I could have taken my wife’s place as a human pin cushion, I would have. No doubt. It started out gradually with just oral medication and ultrasounds, but then we got into blood tests and a trigger shot (to induce ovulation). And after that, stimulating hormone shots.

Mood: Ok, for real. I am here. Maybe talk to me a bit?

At the end, in all she was taking 3-4 shots per day with the biggest one of them being administered by yours truly. (Total side note: I got to be a darn fine shot giver. Like, so good.) Me doing the shots, in a way, got me more involved in the process. I was less resentful of the whole thing because I actually felt like I had a role in creating my child. But that wasn’t until basically year four of our infertility journey. Years two and three were super crappy. One failed procedure after another, a cancelled IVF cycle, a break to switch clinics, etc. It wears on you!

Mood: Our second cycle of IVF was actually a great experience from my perspective. We switched clinics (and got basically the best IVF nurse you could get), so that was a big thing. It was tough on Brittany to be sure, but it was almost like I had a role. A purpose. And everything she was doing wasn’t going to be a complete waste of time and money.

Looking Back at the Whole Infertility Experience

Obviously, I wouldn’t take it back. I have a daughter on the way and we have more than a few embryos waiting for us when we are ready to continue on. Our experience (like every other experience with infertility) was unique, so in that way we’re like everyone else. If that makes any sense. Gosh, it sure was terrible at times. And other times it was just laughable. Let’s just say that our dignity took a hit between collecting samples and a million ultrasounds. There’s nothing quite like handing someone that sample cup at the end of your session. It’s something, to be sure.

There’s still a ton of stigma associated with infertility – and that’s the reason I am writing this today. In honor of National Infertility Awareness Week, here are my takeaways:

Yes, men can and do want families just as bad as their wives. And for the record, I am not disappointed by having a daughter as I’ve been asked multiple times. I can’t wait to be surrounded by pink and princesses and Disney.

Yes, the woman is the patient. But I am still a willing and necessary part of the equation. Especially given that we are fighting unexplained infertility.

Yes, we could have adopted. And no, it wouldn’t have been the same thing. We considered it. Still could do it in the future if our next treatments don’t work. But to the next person who asks “Why didn’t you just adopt?”, I am going to sharply reply, “Why didn’t you?”

Yes, we will certainly have leftover embryos. Yes, some of them will be donated to future research. Yes, we will try to have some donated to couples in need. No, I don’t need to hear how you think it’s wrong we created excess life.

So, there you have it. We hope NIAW can let people talk more openly about their fertility. Some studies suggest that an infertility diagnosis has a similar psychological impact as a cancer diagnosis – and no one should have to go through that alone.

Encouragement for when Motherhood Doesn’t Come Naturally

I was never a great babysitter. in high school, I much rather would have been spending my summers working for Kilgore’s Pharmacy’s side businesses than taking part in any form of nannying (shout out, Snow Cone Alley and Plant Shack!). I believe “under my skin” is the phrase that best describes where children in my care would typically end up.

Here’s a picture of me around my Snow Cone Alley days…eating a blooming onion.

I wasn’t the pre-teen at family reunions asking to hold the twins and sitting with the adults at the dinner table. I was outside convincing all the kids around my age to come along for adventures in the barn and on the farm equipment or to take part in plays that I was both writing and directing.

I have always been bossy, not parental. Somewhat caring, not nurturing.

I love to throw a party but have to #werk to remember to be a host. It is actual effort for me to tap into my southern heritage and remember to offer guests a glass of water (bless her heart, they say).

Those sweet eCards that spam your Facebook now like to remind us that a woman becomes a mother when she conceives, a man becomes a father when he holds his baby for the first time. Pardon me for poopooing on these gender role expectations, but in my case this was not so.

My whole pregnancy felt surreal at best. There’s a baby in there? It’s part me and part him? It will come into the world? I am to be one of its caretakers?

I did not feel immediately maternal.

I don’t think that all people experience the same thing I did. I whole heartedly believe that there are some men and women in the world who are born with parental instincts. They have been mothers and fathers, in one way or another, their whole lives…searching for someone to nurture, to hold, to raise. I am thankful for this lot of you because I’m certain, for one, that you helped raise me. But, for two, you’ve become my litmus test for knowing what action to take with my own son when and if my motherly instincts haven’t caught up.

WWMD is the bracelet I wear around my arm now…What Would a Mom Do? (JK, but what if…would you wear it? Would you pay me for it? Dibs.)

What I’m trying to say is that I know you exist and I’m grateful.

What I would also like to say is that I know that my breed exists too. We’re the ones that are still waiting to feel like parents long after labor or adoption. The ones that would never quite consider themselves “kid people” unless that kid was their own or in a group of a specific few others…maybe not even then? The ones that have a hard time not talking to 4-year olds like they’re your buddies…not your little buddies…your friends, your peers, small adults if you will.

I think we bring our own strengths to the world, but I think we’re also hesitant to share this reality out loud (especially as women in this culture) because it makes us feel…defective? What chip did they forget to install inside of our mushy mom hearts that makes some of this stuff not entirely natural?

I waited my whole pregnancy to feel like a mom, but figured that if that eCard wasn’t correct, maybe it would come through for me in the “way it does for dads.” Maybe I would become a mom when I held my baby for the first time.

My emotions were likely compromised on the flip side of my two-day long labor. I was tired and hungry and fresh out of surgery when I saw my son for the first time and…whereas I thought my heart would explode into a millions fairies filled with love and world peace in that moment…I looked at him and thought, “That one’s ours?…I should…probably feed him, no?”

It didn’t help that he looked even less assured and comfortable than I was…

Luke and I went to a movie when our baby was a month old and for an hour it felt like it was still just the two of us in life together–incredibly disorienting but also not. We traveled to Galveston when he was four months old and, at that point, I just didn’t feel the distance. My dad said we’d have to fight hard to have anything else to talk about on dates and we just…didn’t…at first.

I have worried on more than 75 different occasions that I’m not “feeling the right feelings” when it comes to parenting. Naturally, guilt has followed.

But now, nine months into motherhood and a year and a half out from conception, I am able to shed most of this specific guilt and see this truth more clearly: I am becoming a momma like I became most significant things in my life…gradually, and through trial and error, and eventually with confidence and conviction.

It wasn’t when the test read positive. It wasn’t when I first nursed him out of the OR.

It was when he looked up from his bottle and grabbed my chin at the end of a hard day and rubbed it back and forth with his soft, tiny thumb. It was when he sat up in his crib and whimpered “meh-ma, meh-ma” for the first time. It’s the nights that I hold him long after he’s fed and fallen asleep, and I let myself cry (hard) because I am so overwhelmed by his life and the fact that I get to be such a unique part of it. It’s how he’s grafted into this family and I don’t even know when it happened but there is a big void when he’s gone. My hand flies up at the girgly threat of spit-up and I want him to feel loved and challenged and known with every drop of blood coursing through these limbs of mine that wrestle him into pajama pants every night.

I miss him when he sleeps.

I talk to him in the car like he can answer me, excited for the season when he can tell me about his time away.

I am unable right now to fully wrap my mind around this impossible existence of being someone’s mama. He is simultaneously entirely mine, and entirely us, and entirely other…his own being, wholly new to the world, ready to discover and be discovered as we all have done and also as no one else has ever done. I have never felt so fully creator and spectator all at the same time in my entire life.

I am finding myself saturated with this almost uneasy level of undomesticated care, protection, connection, and love for someone I didn’t know a year ago and I helped…to make? In and amongst all of the very real questions, lack of sleep, irritability, and heaviness that is postpartum, lies this kinetic energy slowly building inside of me on behalf of this bundle of humanity I call my son.

(Check out how I made sure he was fed and clothed and in his carseat LIKE A MOM WOULD DO.)

Motherhood wasn’t automatic. And in a lot of ways it still isn’t natural. But it is evolving and deepening while all of the competencies it takes to fulfill this role as parent are also finding their way into my skill set…slowly, surely. With them comes confidence. And with confidence comes a new thing which I now feel I can call instinct.

Britney Lee writes and runs Milk Drunk Blog where this article was originally published. Click here to view original.

TGIM Shorts + a Business Interview with Mama Bird Box

https://soundcloud.com/tgim-shorts-shopify/mama-bird-box

We were so honored when Brenda Salinas reached out to us. She was interested in producing a piece for Shopify’s TGIM Shorts that discussed marketing as a subscription box service.

Click play above to hear a little more from us as we discuss running a small business from a home office and how we decided who we’d be selling our boxes to.

Thank you, Brenda and Shopify! We were so honored to be featured!