Good News!

R's count was zero again this morning - he is officially sterile. Yay for R!

Conflicted

“There’s no way you could think all of that at once. You’d go mad!”

“Just because YOU have the emotional depth of a teaspoon…”

Name that book? Anyone?

I start my morning groggy and put on the water for tea before I get Little K out of bed. I put together a healthy lunch for me and a “what will she actually eat” lunch for her before I finish waking her up and insist she eats breakfast. Then I go in to get ready.

I see the digital test in the drawer when I get out my makeup, which reminds me to open the other drawer and take a prenatal vitamin. I get to work and note my dpo/symptoms on the calendar (4dpo, Nausea/Heartburn, Exhausted).

During the day I don’t think about it. When I get home each afternoon and start parenting, I hope it doesn’t work. But when I get to bed at night, curled up with R, I think about what it would be like to have his arm wrapped around my swollen abdomen. How our room would look with a changing table under that painting and a bassinet pulled up to the side of the bed. How it would feel to nurse a little one back to sleep before I finally nod off for the night…

But I don’t think it worked. The heartburn and nausea are from the darn pill. The tired is from only getting six hours of sleep each night. I still drink my caffeinated tea in the morning to wake up. I still take a scalding hot bath to relax at the end of a challenging day. I still expect R’s (third) final count on Friday to be zero. I still plan to color my hair this weekend. I still expect my period to start on February 18^th. I reassure R that it didn’t work, so he can please stop freaking out!

I have three tests in the drawer: one analog and two digital. I will take the analog on February 14^th, retesting on Feb 16^th and 18^th with the digitals.

Zero, Probably

I mastered the 3-way call this morning and was able to listen when R received his lab results. Today’s count was zero. That’s a very good thing. However, the clinic requires two zero specimens before they will call the vasectomy successful. They want the next sample in one week.

I was the courier this morning and, surprise! the clinic is across the street from my center. So, dspence slipped in for a quick ultrasound. Lucky for me that I was due a scan from the last donation. My uterus is currently unoccupied and very cushion-y, with a monster follicle on the left and ovulating this weekend. (I guess my cycle is even more off than I realized!) I gotta tell you that I was disappointed to hear it his count was zero, as I am just awful enough to try tomorrow.

So, there you go. We’re hesitantly at zero pending NEXT Friday’s results.

I think we’re all relieved.

Update: Again, Some More

Always drama at the spence house, huh? When faced with ALL OF MY CRAZY yesterday afternoon, R called the lab to clarify the report. Apparently, even one sperm at 30 months post-op if enough to concern the doctor who performed R’s surgery. The main comment that sticks with me is this: it is possible for one or two to get hung up in the works, which is why they do two counts post-op but at 30 months, we should be at a true zero.

I know what some of you may be thinking: dspence, ONE FREAKING SPERM is not a big deal. A healthy sample will include 20 to 150 MILLION per ml. At 1.5 to 3 ml per ejaculation, we’re looking at 299,999,999 MILLION sperm ABSENT.

And you are right. R is effectively sterile and the chances of conceiving are literally 1 in 300 MILLION. Conceiving would be an actual Act of God.

But you know what? I believe that God is real. Which means that Acts of God are real. We’ve been operating at Act of God status for the past two and a half years and dspence is OFICIALLY OVER IT.

I need to be in a place where my period being late or a bout of nausea does not immediately make me OMG PREGNANT.

And, believe me, R needs a wife who doesn’t do that, too.

Long story short (really long story, ya’ll, see: ALL OF THE CRAZY YESTERDAY AFTERNOON), the doctor has asked for a second sample to review. Drop off is 8:30 AM Friday and we will have results no later than 9:30 AM.

Please, oh please, oh please be zero. I need this to be over.

Closure: Denied

R is the one who got the call from the lab at Noon. He sent me a quick text saying, quote: "We are clear! No live ones!" I thanked him and asked for him to give me a buzz so I could hear exactly what the report said. I posted here twice and was then called into a meeting.

I just got back to my phone and had a voicemail from R. In it, he tells me that the lab tech called him and said that there was ONE (dead, due to the sample being an hour old) sperm in his sample and offered to keep re-checking until the count was officially zero.

One.

After 30 months.

I don't even know what to say...

With my 6 week cycle and our crazy life, R has ejaculated at least 220 times since his surgery. Our lab only requires a patient to ejaculate 30 times before they do a count.

But there is still one.

So there is still hope.

And hope means no closure for dspence.

Fail.

If Anyone Knows R IRL, Tell Him to Bring Me Flowers Tonight

I took another pregnancy test last night. As I watched the urine move across the window, my heart quickened when the positive line darkened momentarily before fading back to white. I stared at it for the full three minutes, not letting my focus shift away, savoring every second.

“This is it,” I thought. “After tomorrow morning, I won’t be able to POAS again. If I’m ever late or feeling sick, I will know that it’s not pregnancy and that there’s something wrong with me instead. I will never be able to think that I’m pregnant ever again. This is the last time I can ever expect the line to show up.”

After ten minutes, I wrapped it up and put it away. I waited for the adrenaline to wear off and, when I was finally calm again, I took it out, looked at it, sighed, and threw it away.

It’s silly, I know. I think I just wanted to have that flare of hope and “what if” one more time before getting official word from the lab.

Now the results are in and it’s all over: zero (HAHAHA*SIGH*). R’s vasectomy back in 2009 was a success and we cannot get pregnant without medical intervention.

I was expecting more of a reaction than this. When it comes to reproduction, my responses tend to be intense. From a girl who spend her tween through early adult years determined not to cry in front of anyone, it is now most likely to find me in tears when facing an intense emotion. Weddings, baptisms, births, deaths, BFPs, BFNs… It may not seem like a big deal to anyone else, but my proclivity toward weeping is an almost unbelievable change.

But there are no tears right now; just resignation and acceptance. After 30 months of uncertainty, 30 months of intimacy, 30 months of “what if”… Now it’s done and we know and it will be one less thing to wonder about.

R is thrilled and I’m just quiet.

Maybe it will hit me tomorrow. Right now, I just feel like my reproductive story is over.

Guess I shouldn’t have purchased the three-pack…

Final Count(down), Closure Pending

We are coming up on 30 months since R’s surgery and the appointment has finally (!!) been scheduled to receive his post-vasectomy count.

Finally!

Because no one wants to blindside their husband with a (possible) unplanned pregnancy at age 46.

Or to swing between “please, oh please, oh please” and “no, please no, please no” without knowing if it’s even possible.

Or stare at one negative test and one inconclusive test, not having any idea which you want to believe.

Or to finally feel resolved and then have an inconclusive pregnancy test, leading you to run your household budget only to find out that, with your new car payment, there would literally be no way to afford daycare and still feed your family.

Not that any of this has happened to us this week...

SO.

The lab is scheduled for 10:00 AM Wednesday morning and we should have an answer within one hour.

I’m sure I will experience both sadness and relief if his count is zero. The one thing I can always count on is feeling conflicted about our family size. On paper, the decision to not expand our family makes perfect sense. In my heart, I still get warm fuzzies about growing our family (although such thoughts are few and far between these days).

But closure is just around the corner.

Finally.

*BTW: We decided to believe the negative one until further notice.