Friday, March 30, 2007

Ticking

I hate this time of the month. My breasts are sore, I feel bloated and gross, and I keep fantasizing that I'm pregnant, while at the same time, bitterly doubting it. I'm in the insufferable post-ovulation 2WW ("two week wait"). Worst of all, I've got another week to go.

No, worse than that: Chances are, I'll be going through it again in a month, and again in another month.

J~ finally saw the urologist, Dr. G~, who ordered a second semen analysis. Last time, there were viscosity and motility issues. This time, no viscosity issues at all, and motility was much improved. Instead, the problem was morphology. Only 9% of his sperm were properly formed. Some had bad midsections, some had tail issues. A whopping seventy-one percent had malformed or double heads. What kind of baby, if any, would those make?

Even so, Dr. G~ scrawled this on the results sheet we received in the mail: "Should be okay to go."

Okay to go?
How could he come to that conclusion? Moreover, how could he not explain how he came to that conclusion? Admittedly, (though not until we were in his office and he'd already felt J~ up, and diagnosed him with a small varicocele, by the way) Dr. G~ doesn't specialize in this sort of thing.

We made an appointment with someone who does.

But the first available slot wasn't until the end of April, which means another cycle or two of this holding pattern, and continued uncertainty about whether or not we should be trying at all.

Last night, J~ gestured toward the clock on my studio wall. "I don't know how you stand that thing. The ticking would drive me crazy."

The clock is loud, he's right. But somehow, I barely notice it.

The same is not true of all my clocks.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

my husband has morphology issues too. there is some kind of mysterious mathematical equation that they use to make these really low percentages okay. something like if the sheer numbers of little swimmers are at or above average, then x% properly formed is considered acceptable. he has been checked out by two different docs, and our RE reviewed all of his test results, and even with his 5% or so morphology, no one seems very concerned. i'm certainly not helping to remove the mystery of this, am i?

i know the frustration of the holding pattern. maybe just give yourself a bit of a break for the next two months? maybe just by not overtly trying but not NOT trying either?

there is a loud clock in the room of the community centre where my yoga class is held. it's so loud that i sometimes even confuse it for my heartbeat when we're supposed to control our breathing based on our heartbeats. it's not bothersome though. i kind of like it.