Monday, June 13, 2011

Men really are from Mars

A fair warning about this post. I'm about to rant about my husband and our differing views on infertility. I love my husband dearly. However, he really does seem to know the best way to push all the buttons that will spark a fight. This isn't something he does often, but he did manage it this weekend.

Did you know that I am obsessive about infertility because I have researched it? I didn't realize that wanting to know what was going on in my own body and why things weren't working right was a bad thing. I'm also apparently all consumed with wanting a child and this stress MUST be what is causing the main problem. Apparently a low sperm count and poor morphology doesn't contribute to the problem at all. Go figure.

Apparently, I also need therapy because I'm unhappy that we aren't able to have children. I guess I must have missed the rainbows and puppies stages of all of this. Did someone see a unicorn around? I hear they fart glitter on us infertiles and that will solve all of our unhappiness.

I should also ignore the fact that time is running out for us to have children. He actually pulled out examples of celebrities having babies into their late 40's. Yep, he went there. Add in the fact his cousin's family is being built through IVF (which he thought was actually IUI) and everything worked out the first time with twins and 3 frozen embryos to boot. I admit to being jealous that it worked, but I also listened and understood everything when they were telling us about the 5 IUIs including 3 rounds of injectibles and that was after several rounds of clomid. But he thinks we have all the time in the world and that 1 round of any kind of assisted fertilization is going to work perfectly and give us the family of our dreams.

He's also decided that since clomid does such evil bad things to my brain (and he does have a valid point on that one because clomid does make me crazy) that if the RE prescribes it, he doesn't want me to take it. So he's now an RE, but doesn't know the difference between an IUI or an IVF.

Add in the fact he was spouting off about how I'm too stressed and stress make people infertile and how I shouldn't be reading blogs or looking things up so that I can be informed about my health, it ended up being one heck of a blow-up.

The end result is that he now wants me to tell him what I need him to do to help me. When I said that I would appreciate help around the house as it would ease some of my stress, I was told he meant emotionally. Go figure. I said coming to the appointments would be helpful as I hated feeling alone at Dr. Cool's office. That was shot down because he doesn't have the time for that kind of stuff unless I can schedule after business hours. So essentially, he wants things to continue as they are, but he wants a pat on the head because he offered to help me even though he shot down all the things I said would help me.

In conclusion, I feel like men are from Mars in the infertility world. I know there are some wonderful men blogging about it out there. I have shared your sites with my husband, but he doens't feel like they are what he needs at this point. So we continue to muddle through and I'll continue to research, read blogs, and seek support from the ALI community.

6 comments:

TeeJay said...

You poor thing. You are not alone. My husband, after knowing that I spent over 4 years trying with my first husband, had the nerve to tell me that we just weren't timing things right. WTH? And his best advice was to just relax, too. Men...they just don't always get it. IF is so hard on us as individuals and then it definitely spills over into messing with our relationships, too. It's an evil monster to say the least. Hang in there, sweetie. You may not always see eye to eye on how to handle everything but you have a common goal to work towards. ((hugs))

VA Blondie said...

Men can be such idiots at times. They just do not get it, sometimes. I am sorry this is so frustrating for you.

Anonymous said...

It is amazing how each of us approach and deal with IF so differently. It took C until we started IVF (and likely failed it) until he started taking a huge active role; understanding why I blocked alcohol, caffience etc from my life. Why I researched and found the blog helpful. Why I like him at the clinic with me; it was the only thing he could do to help me, feel a real part of this bc everything else was happening to me, not us. If we were in it, we were in it together.
Hoping you find some more togetherness in this hell! xo

Kate @ Ex Libris said...

My husband and, really, my friends acted this way when we had your troubles. The problem is that people feel powerless and men want to fix when all you might need is someone to listen to you. The online community is what got me through. I felt so alone before I started my blog. I'm sorry that you are having to go through this and I hope you can come to a better understanding. You aren't crazy and you aren't alone.

Raising Davis Darlings said...

Yep, Men are really from Mars. We are dealing with second infertility. Now even though I feel blessed to have a child, it is hard right now when all my friends have moved on to their second and third. A couple of months ago when we were leaving our fertility doctor's office, low and behold, who did we run into but our next door neighbors. Talk about an awkward moment. After another two months failure with my RE my husband ran into our neighbor who happily told him she was pregnant....WITH TWINS! And my man from Mars HAD to come tell me and ruin my night, ok, well my week. He knows hearing of pregnancies right now upset me dearly but I guess my martian thought he was protecting me when I rather have not known until it was quite obvious when I see her. My martian was upset asking me not to shoot the messenger. My question to him was who asked him to be the damn messenger?? Men say things thinking it is out of love. I have heard too from my husband that I am "tring to hard" and to "just relax". They just really do not understand. They handle things so differently that there will be times that we clash about the subject.

Liz said...

Tough.

I do think men have a very different perspective to us. And maybe that isn't a bad thing. I get frustrated when my husband ass a basic question about IVF, we've been through two rounds - how the hell can he still not know "x". But then I figure balance is good. Two people equally stressed would just heighten the panic. Having someone being more laid back helps me chill out a bit.