Hurry Up and Wait

We met with our fertility doctor for the second time yesterday. And though we got some good news, we also got the same news as we've been getting for two years, "Wait a little longer."

When I tell people where about our journey, I'm not sure whether to start at the beginning or where we are now. It's a lot to take in, and yet, I know we haven't been waiting as long as others.

I've never been a patient person. I'm certain my parents would tell anyone who would listen that I have never been able to wait for anything. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that 21 months (as of right now) waiting to get pregnant is a special kind of torture for me.

On top of that, I'm just not used to the referral method of the Canadian healthcare system. Growing up American, you just went to whatever clinic you needed, and you paid for it. Now, we can get help for free, we just have to wait. It's like thumbscrews.

We waited 6 months to get a spot at the only fertility clinic near us. And 3 months for a follow-up appointment.

Yesterday, we learned that my suspicions were correct: my husband does have retrograde ejaculation. That means the sphincter that is supposed to stop his semen from going into his bladder doesn't work properly.

To perform this test, our doctor had him adhere to the "Sudafed regimen" where he took 2 - 60 mg tablets of pseudoephedrine every day for 5 days before the test. In clinical trials, this has been shown to be an effective treatment 40-60% of the time. And it seems to work for us as well!

My husband was able to produce a 0.6 mL "antegrade" (out of the penis) ejaculation. The average ejaculate is 2-5 mL, so this is rather low.

What was promising was that in that 0.6 mL, he had over 100 million sperm. Usually, they're looking for 15 million per milliliter, so having 100 million in ½ of that.

Regardless, our doctor believes that these results show that the Sudafed regimen is working. Therefore, he feels confident that we can conceive in 6 months. To most people, that seems like a really positive statement.

To me, it's a prison sentence. The Prison of Waiting. 

 But I guess it's better than the alternative.