The Male Perspective | Part 1

I want to first preface this by saying that I have been so lucky in my life to have the people in my life that I do. Lissa, of course, but especially my parents. Just bare with me people, all of this will come to a full circle in a second.

My dad is tough, rugged, and one of the hardest working individuals I have ever been fortunate enough to know. He’s a man’s man. Outdoorsy, non-emotional, rough around the edges, youngest of 9 children; I could go on and on about how great of a man he is. My mother is soft-spoken, kind, emotional. She taught me how to respect and love. He taught me how to work hard for what I want, not to take any shit from anyone, and provided me with enough tough love to make me the person I am today. My mother would tell you that it’s almost to a fault that I act just like my dad, but I know deep down she wouldn’t want it any other way. She is right though, I am just like him. I act like he does; I’m tough (at least I think I am, lol), I don’t show much emotion, and you could say that I am typically not too comforting (Lissa would agree to that as well). Some say I walk like him, talk like him. I don’t get too worked up over anything and it takes a lot to get a rise out of me. I am my father’s son and there have been no truer words spoken. I wouldn’t have it any other way. What better people to learn from and mimic than your own parents?

Why am I telling you all of this information you might ask? On a supposed blog about infertility? Because for the past two and a half years, everything that my parents have molded me to be, everything that I am; my tough outer shell my dad instilled in me; the rough cut personality; the tough, “manly man” persona that I “thought” I had…Well...ALL of that has been completely SHATTERED by what Lissa and I have been through. All of it, broken through as if it was never even really there…

Some people say you cannot truly judge someone’s character until it has been pushed to its limits. Tested in defeat and drug through the mud. That’s when you find out who you really are, or like me, find out what’s underneath that tough skin. Lissa and I have unfortunately found that out the hard way.

We always knew that shortly after we got married we would want to try and have children. It’s something we had discussed in length multiple times. At first, we were in no hurry. We didn’t want to rush it or turn it into a competition among family and friends about when, how, and why we would have kids. We wanted it to be like everything we had done together since we had met years earlier. We had always done everything our way, but little did we know in the beginning of this journey that it would be anything but “our way.”

Initially, we were told that it may take some time. Lissa had some underlying issues that would have to be addressed, but it was nothing too far out of the ordinary and nothing that was going to detour us from our dream in any way; or so we thought. Her doctor had gone as far as to say that it may even take us “up to a year” to get pregnant, which we were perfectly okay with at the time. Again, we were not in a hurry. Not at this point in our lives. We wanted it to be fun. We wanted to enjoy ourselves and the early stages of our marriage while getting mentally prepared for the life ahead of us.

I am not going to get too much into detail in regards to our actual infertility journey, because by now you are beyond invested in our story and how things have gone for us. I will say this however; throughout this entire process, Lissa and I both have been so lucky to have each other. We both understand that we could have it much, much worse than it has been and we by no means have taken any of our journey for granted. It has made us stronger individually and more importantly, as a couple. I love her more now than I ever thought I could, but this journey has been the farthest thing from easy and enjoyable as you could possibly be.

Lissa has always been GREAT with kids and I always knew that one day, whenever that time came, that she would be a great mother. That is probably even an understatement. Starting years ago, not too much longer after we had met, I had envisioned a life with her and having kids was obviously a large part of that. I just knew very early in our relationship that she was it. The one. You can forget about any one person, there was literally NOTHING that had ever made me feel the way that she did. She literally has it all. Everything a guy could possibly dream of in a woman. What kind of lucky S.O.B am I to have landed her? All I knew was that I wasn’t going to question my good fortune in marrying up to her when I was lucky enough to do so.

Fast forward years later and here we are. In the trenches, together, fighting a struggle that is even more common then what the normal person might ever imagine. The struggle with infertility will do things to a person that, unless you have lived it, you cannot fathom. It will flat out eat you up, break you down, spit you out, and make you question everything you think you know about life. It had absolutely done that to us and it always found a way to smack you right in the face. I was reminded literally every night of our struggle. Scheduled injections. Hundreds of them. Can you even imagine? Watching your wife inject medicine in herself, daily, trying to find the right spot in the maze of bruises that lined her stomach. My God, the bruises... Even worse, me, her husband, having to do the same thing to her, on her lower back. Fighting to find a spot that was still tender enough to stick the needle. A spot that wasn't actually bruised so badly already so that I didn't hurt her anymore than I felt like I already had. It was so brutal. So sad, heartbreaking. It wanted to kick my ass, but I couldn't let it.

I always tried to stay positive throughout the process. One, because that’s who I am. Two, because that’s who I needed to be. Three, because that is what Lissa needed from me. Infertility broke her. Not in a sense that she was ever broken beyond repair or at any point had lost all hope, not even close. Do you remember that tough persona I talked about earlier? The one this guy had? Well, Lissa has it, too. Her parents are amazing people who I am forever grateful for, for raising such a selfless, caring, and strong young woman. Sure, like most women she had her emotional moments, but I had never before witnessed anything get to her like this. There were actually moments where I felt like I could do nothing to help. A lot of them...I often fumbled over words and thought there was nothing I could say or do that would make it better for her. I hated that. Hated that I couldn’t give back to her even half of what she has given to me. It killed me on the inside and at times made me feel useless…but I had to always let her know we were in this together.

And that we were. From day one, I was all in. Once we got past the initial shock of not really believing or really understanding what we were dealing with, Lissa and I both knew and agreed that we were going to move forward in doing whatever it took to start a family. That was the only thing we were both certain about throughout our journey.