The Only Way Is Forwards

Have you ever entered an unfamiliar place and somehow certain senses of yours are triggered? What stood out for me was a strong rank smell of cheap perfume another patient was wearing as she sat relaxed with her partner, in the waiting room. I wasn't relaxed really. I was nervous. We had our first official appointment with the fertility clinic here in our city so this was definitely a big deal to us, especially me as I was the one that filled out most of questionn

aire forms and copied the birth certificates on behalf of Ben and myself.

Our fertility specialist doctor ran over our notes and tests that I had leading up to the appointment and that Ben had taken an hour before the appointment. I never expected him (the doctor) to be as insensitive in the moment as he was, compared to our regular GP. Ben's swimmers count was found to be lower than his first analysis months ago, as well as proclaimed the possibility of something scary that my husband could have - for private reasons, we won't be sharing this particular thing.

I did break in tears due to how emotional the whole situation was making me, also due to how blatant the doctor was being; it came across more upsetting than factual. I believe he then realised his words were a bit strong and then gave me a box of tissues and changed his tone of voice. I couldn't control the tears. All my life, I never imagined we would have such a struggle to achieve our dream of a healthy baby to love and raise. But we have accepted that this is the situation we are in - we can either let it get to us, or take it as a challenge that will be achieved.

In six weeks, we have a follow up appointment with the same doctor to see if there are some answers to the low swimmers count and what can be done to fix this problem, as in many cases with men with this problem it can be resolved. Thus, before these six weeks have gone by, we each will be taking an antibiotic called Azithromycin as a precaution before any fertility treatment takes places. A week after we have each taken this antibiotic, on the same day, Ben will have another analysis and they will bank (freeze) some of his good swimmers for the day we IVF treatment, round one, will begin for us. Our first treatment round won't happen for about 20 months due to the wait as we are going through public funding, which means during that time we can still have multiple chances to keep trying naturally, as well as to live our lives together as a strong and happy married couple.

I'm really proud of how strong Ben is going through this and keeping a positive outlook. It's not an easy task but this is all going to be totally worth it, the whole fertility journey, when we one day hold our miracle baby in our arms, looking into each other's eyes and thinking, "I am so in love with this little human and I'm so in love with the person I get to share this little human with!"

Anyone that goes through infertility understands the heart break they feel every Mother/Father's Day that drifts by and as we watch some of our other friends and family conceive babies as though it is a piece of cake. Our destiny is to become parents to a beautiful human to love forever, in some way and whenever that time will arrive when we are probably least thinking about it. Luckily, both my husband and I have positive distractions in our life that can stop our minds from drifting and dwelling on "what if" moments.

“There’s no telling how many miles you have to run while chasing a dream.” xx