Well kids, it seems that after a bit of a break, we’re back here again…I’m sitting in the little curtained-off area around your mom’s bed in the fertility clinic ward – yup, it’s retrieval time again…serious case of déjà vu!!
She’s donned her sexy arse-in-the-wind clinical strait-jacket, covered that with a little silk dressing gown she borrowed from nan, and is alternating between reading her book and responding to messages on her blackberry, trying to pretend she’s not chomping at the bit, that she isn’t counting the seconds into minutes calculating how long it is till 9am – we’re first on the list this morning for the theatre, so it’s likely to be 9 o’clock sharp.
And, in keeping with this sense of déjà vu, I find myself typing the next sentence…
I know it’s been a long time since we’ve chatted, and I know I’ve said that so many times before.
I have a problem with the blogging thing now…since the Carte Blanche interview and coming out the closet so totally, I’ve had second thoughts about blogging to you guys…the anonymity has gone, I worry about who might be reading this and what they might be thinking. Before the TV interview, it was easy to believe that the only people reading this blog were other infertiles, the vast majority of whom, I’d never meet. But whether I would be someday having coffee or dinner with them was immaterial, because at the end of the day, they’re infertiles. They understand. And if they don’t understand exactly, they can imagine, because they’re experiencing similar trials and tribulations. I can write about the embarrassing experiences of infertility, I can talk about medically sanctioned masturbation, I can openly discuss the strange thoughts and feelings this whole experience evokes…and because they’re infertiles, when I meet them, knowing they’ve read these deep and dark secrets, know that they know that until just a few short months ago, I wasn’t producing sperm, and I can still look them in the eye with no embarrassment (well very little anyway).
And, as much as I’m writing this blog for you two, for your mom and for me, I put it on the web, in the hopes that it might help other infertiles to see things from a guys perspective, to hopefully help the women out there to maybe understand what their husbands might be going through, and also hopefully let any guys out there know that they’re not alone.
But that’s the infertile readers…now that we’re so totally “Out”, it’s ridiculously easy for anybody else to find the blog. Nothing brought this home more than the fact that I received phonecalls from complete strangers straight after the TV interview aired, and still do. Never mind finding my blog, they’ve found my home phone number, connected to me on Facebook, sent me emails…
A huge part of me is thrilled when I get these contacts…the phone call a few weeks ago from a gentleman in Pinelands who wanted to talk to me because his daughter and son-in-law were struggling with infertility and he had no-one else to talk to…that’s special, feels like making a difference.
But the flip-side is that fertiles could be reading this too. People who don’t understand, people who may not be able to put themselves in our shoes. It might be people I have known for years, acquaintances and work colleagues, my mother, my sister, my father-in-law, my brother-in-law…and it’s not that I specifically have a problem with that, but it does make me take pause before writing, wondering if the things I say may inadvertently hurt them or make them uncomfortable.
It’s difficult to write about the ups and downs of this experience when you’re wondering if your family will understand, how they will react if you post about having second thoughts about having kids, or how spending time with your 15 month old niece is such a bittersweet experience every single time. How it totally melts you inside when she sees you and gets all excited and smiley, and how depressing it is every single time that I watch her being strapped into her car seat and the car seat going back into my sisters car. How it leaves me feeling horribly jealous and sad.
I’ve wanted to post about many things, nothing more so than our Christmas holiday – 6 nights rough camping on the beach with nan & granddad, Aunty K and her husband, their daughter and stepson. Absolutely awesome and the kind of thing your mom and I love above all else and totally thrive on…but how watching my sister with her 15 month old daughter and 9 year old stepson impacted her holiday. Sitting back and realising the challenges of travelling and camping with small children, how different it would be, and wondering if I was really up for that. Wondering whether my dreams of travelling Africa, South America, the Far East would become virtually impossible with kids in tow, of just how different longs days on the road are when you have a board toddler (or teenager for that matter) with you. And how this all trigger the biggest period of doubt since we started this journey to conceive. But I would hate for the family to feel like we didn’t want to spend time with them.
I wanted to post about friends of the family trying (I assume) to be sensitive and not invite your mom to a big baby shower, but how this actually hurt her all the more than inviting her but saying you would understand if she didn’t make it. But would hate for them to know how much it hurt your mom, because they were, I believe, doing what they thought was best.
And there are many of these sorts of instances, things to write about but concern about who might be reading it…
And the result of all of this…no blogging…
I won’t promise to be a better blogger – history has proven that to be folly, but as I sit in this cubicle, waiting to be beckoned to the wank tank while your mom is wheeled into the theatre, I feel like I’m closer to you guys again, that the period of doubt has passed, that I know I do want kids, and we’ll continue doing what we can to get them.
And if we’re going to do that, then I must work through my concerns about who else might read these posts, because, at the end of the day, they’re really for the four of us: me, your mom, and you two special people…our children.
