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Infertilish 101
You’ve found out you have a fertility problem and want to learn more about it. Perhaps you want to meet others dealing with similar issues for comfort and understanding. Welcome. This is a very friendly and understanding community. Infertility may have caused us to develop a warped sense of humor and you do get the occasional fits of rage against those who procreate without even trying (teens, crack heads, relatives who’ve only been married a month)…but you’ll soon understand those feelings if you aren’t starting to already. What you will be confronted with is a new language that you may not understand, Infertilish.
In our frustration from not being able to procreate with just a man and a woman, we infertile’s start smashing together several disciplines in our desperate attempt for anything to help us Trying To Conceive (TTC). You have the chemists with their sticks in urine hoping for a line to tell them today is the day. The women call it Peeing On A Stick (POAS) and this is done for ovulation tests and pregnancy tests. There are the biologists checking cervical mucus looking for the right indicator. You will also see the charters taking their temperature every morning looking for the spike telling them an egg is on route and Baby Making Sex (BMS) must start immediately. Many may be doing all 3 at the same time. Then they add more disciplines of natural medicine using herbs, acupuncture and maybe even others before the couple decided to go to a doctor looking for answers.
Since we are familiar by now with smashing disciplines together, that is what happened with the Infertilish language. The language combines cryptography, chronology and mathematics to form its base structure. With a few lines an infertile can cram their entire infertility journey. You feel the hopes in one line and their crushing sadness in the next.
You may come across something like this:
ttc 2yrs
6/7 IVF#1
7/2 BFP
8/5 m/c @ 6 weeks
11/2 IVF #2
11/26 BFN
This woman has been trying to conceive for 2 years. Started her first IVF on June 7th. The first test came back a Big “Fat” Positive but she miscarried the baby at 6 weeks. She tried her second IVF on November 2nd and the pregnancy test came back a Big “Fat” Negative on November 26th. (Some infertile folks don’t use the word fat.)
A few try to shove in what medications they used and strengths. You may also see IUI attempts as well, but this should at least give you an idea what they are talking about.
You will also see woman talking about how many DPO they are. This stands for Days Past Ovulation and is used to tell women when she can start POAS for a BFP or BFN result. Except with IVF it gets a little more complicated. For IVF you have to consider the days between Egg Retrieval (ER) and Embryo Transfer (ET). You will see these cryptic markings like 3dp5dt. This says the woman is 3 days past her 5 day transfer. You add the 3 and the 5 to figure out she is 8 dpo. Now you might be asking why bother, why not just use the dpo standard of measurement? Because Infertilish is not just about communicating information but also emotion.
Look at the following 3 women.
Susan is 9dp3dt.
Grace is 7dp5dt.
Patty is 6dp6dt.
All 3 woman are 12 dpo and itching to POAS hoping for a BFP. But Susan’s doctor’s didn’t like the progress of the embryos so they put them in early hoping for them to survive better in the womb. Grace’s doctor’s were happy with her embryo growth to keep them going for 5 days before transferring them into her womb. Patty however is from a frozen embryo transfer as fresh transfers are 2, 3 and 5 days. So she isn’t dealing with coming off of 2 weeks of stimulation drugs and the pain of egg retrieval right now. Unless she is a year past her previous attempt, more than likely her fresh attempt didn’t work out and she is dealing with that loss at the same time hoping this one works.
If you would like to learn more about Infertilish you can purchase my advanced course, “Infertilish to Parenthood 900.” For the ridiculously low price of $14,000 I will attempt to send you the course material which in 9 months you may or may not receive. However, included is a test you can run after 2 weeks to see if you’ve been screwed. All purchases are final, no refunds.
BTW we are 4dp3dt, bonus points if you can figure out how we are feeling.
Welcome
I’ve decided to start a blog about going through the process In Vetro Fertilization (IVF) from the viewpoint of the male perspective. I wish I started this sooner, but to put it plainly, it was just too painful. So I’m just going to create the next few posts as if I made them a couple a months ago when I was going through the stages leading up to this procedure. I apologize now for grammar. For some reason it seems like I proof read a post 3 times and still when I look back on a post there is a face palm mistake. Maybe doing this blog will help me improve that. I doubt it.
This is a mature subject matter covering topics about the reproductive systems. I will avoid going pornographic, but there are certain situations that must be discussed and may be uncomfortable to read. If you find yourself uncomfortable reading about a situation, that is because I was uncomfortable living the situation. I want to be open and honest about my feelings. Which is hard for guys. Someday I may link this to facebook, but for now I’m staying anonymous. If you know who we are I request you please do not use our names in your comments. If you are reading this after I’ve gone public with it, sorry. This is really an outlet for me to record the journey.
Some quick background info about myself for starters to kick this off. Currently I am in my mid thirties and on wife number 2. I’d always hoped to have started a family by age 30, because I didn’t want to be going to high school games in my 50’s. Right now I would love to be in my 50’s going to a high school game. Funny how life works sometimes. I was always curious why my first wife never got pregnant. But with her own medical problems I never pressed the issue. I’ll avoid the long story and just say she had an unexplainable abdominal pain that required pain killers to function. Making her get off them would mean constant pain for her. So while we weren’t trying to have kids, we were not avoiding them either. The doctors did have a treatment to use if she ever did become pregnant. But it was not a scenario I was looking forward too. I figured the issue was with her and had accepted that kids were a remote possibility. Well after 14 years together, the relationship fell apart. As devastated as I was, the hope that a family was possible helped get me through the rough times.
Then I met my new wife. A beautiful southern bell that brings a smile to my face when I look at her. Who, as it turns out, also had dreams of a family. After a year of trying to have children and nothing happening, we decided to get help and find out what the problem is…
IVF male 