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Success after IF
DavezWife
member
So then what have you/DH done to avoid "The IF Kiss of Death"?
DavezWife
member
Spinning off the J&K post... INFERTILITY (IF) can wreck a marriage, or certainly attempt to damage it.
What are some things that you and your husband/partner have done RIGHT? What's made this lousy IF diagnosis take a back seat in your marriage? What advice do you have to avoid IF's fatal blows?
Me? I'm not sure what we're doing right, but I think we're "OK." I give some points to the fact we traveled for 6 months straight together... that was a whole different kind of stress and learning curve. We had eachother and that was it. I'll babble further by saying Davez has been OUT OF THIS WORLD outstanding in the support division these past few months. Super. I've tried to point out what I think helps, and been understanding when he doesn't quite know how to do that. In my hysterics with this most recent loss, I screamed at him "You don't get to leave us over this. You HAVE to stay in this family. We're in this together!" He paused, tears welled up, and he says "no chit, now let's get thru this and move on." OK, so that just turned into a post about how great I think my husband is... but whatever... I think we're doing something right to avoid the IF Kiss of Death.
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Re: So then what have you/DH done to avoid "The IF Kiss of Death"?
I'm not sure we have avoided this. It has gotten slightly worse after DS was born.
This is why...watch out I'm honest today....
We spent 2plus years trying and DH was annoyed we had to go to SO MANY appts - so he blames me - even though we have male factor - which I have never blamed him. He says stuff like 'well you wanted to get treatments, do IVF and i've been there and gone to a zillion appts'. So it's like *I* wanted a baby, even though he did too. So when we got pg the first time, he was done with going to appts. So he didn't want to go to u/s and then for this pregnancy I MADE HIM take me to all appts because hello i was on bedrest (self prescribed but whatever). So, his attitude is - let's not talk about another baby because that is ALL WE HAVE done for 3 yrs now. IF consumed our life for 3years in his opinion (including the time of being pregnant). I'm not sure how to fix that. He has been better, but...
I think we are 'ok', but we have had some arguments. It's because I get little sleep and I'm very snappy.
For us, it was the reality check we got when the girls arrived 12.5 weeks early combined with Alaina contracting a life threatening illness at 3 weeks old. It made us realize that we could get through some of the hardest and most awful things if we leaned on each other and that's made some of the stuff we would have stressed over before so much less of an issue now. Do we still argue, get annoyed with each other and occasionally wish the other one would disappear? Definitely. But I think we know now that you can never predict what's going to happen so better to enjoy what you have and find the bright side of every situation than to spend your time being miserable. If I could change things, of course I would love to have carried the girls closer to term but I have to say that the lessons we learned about being a team and appreciating our blessings because of what we went through were almost worth it.
We went into this with the idea that our lives were pretty great as they were, and if we were never able to have children of our own, our marriage was the most important thing. We also decided that if IF ever put our marriage into a place we didn't like, we would stop trying right then.
We tried almost three years...and we never had one fight/disagreement over IF...not one. We made the joint decision to do as many IUIs as I was comfortable with, but if that didn't work, we were calling it quits. We decided, together, not to pursue IVF.
Now, in the almost 10 weeks after our BFP, we feel really great about our marriage. I worry about being good parents...he is totally not worried, or at least that's what he tells me. He understand my wacked out relationship with food right now, and gives me the first few bites of EVERYTHING he eats. He brings me cold washrags when I'm nauseas/vomiting. He tolerated my buying insanely expensive nursery furniture...and laughs that I bought $30.00 worth of unisex baby clothes at TJ Maxx yesterday. I have a pretty good hubs ;-)
This is the kind of stuff DH and I encountered while TTC and what landed us in marriage counseling. Please if your husband is willing see a counselor it helped us tremendously!
I think a lot of what my husband and I get by on is understanding each other. Also, patience is a virtue and something we are working on together. It's hard with baby(ies). Adam doesn't get as emotional as I do about this stuff and even though he's male, I can't understand why not. It makes me totally frustrated sometimes and that's why when I lost this baby, I made sure to tell him all my feelings and asked him what he was feeling. I didn't want either of us holding back.
I guess open communication is key and I think a lot of people break up or divorce because there is no line of communication in their relationship. I think there was a lot of yelling in J&K's relationship and no sit down and talk. Maybe no time, but something that important you make time.
I think the best thing we did was not dwell on the process.
For us, a blog about each and every step would have been an awful choice. I mean a manjor mental health disaster. Instead of blogging about my IF, reading about IF, etc. I got up and out in the sunshine and did something not IVF related.
IF was not going to define my life and be something I spent more time on each day than I needed to. Once we were pregnant, we let go of the 'I'm different, I'l special" stuff that comes along with IF. We just tried to let it go and be normal.
We compartmentalized the treatments and struggles and then got busy living our lives to the fullest while the process went along.
well i think we are in a good place now, but I do agree with other poster - we both feel the other person would disappear and that would be ok (me smiling...ok disappear for an hr would be nice : ) ). My faith helped me get through TTC, but DH is not religious so that is a problem too.
I think it is important to be on the same page. How far are you willing to go for the end goal? IVF, adoption, donor eggs, gestational surrogate.
Of course there are things that popup that challenges marriages - bedrest, premies, dealing with health issues of LO, other major issues
I see friends struggling with IF or inability to have children and their DH is totally not open to other options (adotpion or surrogate) That causes this too....
One of my friends- DH and I see her and her DH divorcing -since she FORCED her DH to get her pregnant. (she got pg at 35 first month trying, so not TTTCing) This is not healthy either - her and her DH were not on the same page. She is pregnant now and her DH threw a fit when he found out she was pg - but hey he was there too....his response 'well, we shook on having ONLY ONE kid'. they shook on it...
DH and I were on the same page regarding IVF at the time. I think J&K may not have done that. He might have agreed with it just to appease her.
DH and I are both 'done' with doing IVF (we are on the same page).
I know it sounds cheesy but really focusing on communicating. Sitting down a few nights a week and checking in - real talk. It's how we got through the IF process (IVF, FETs, etc) and how we get through other issues (finances, family, etc.)
The other thing is doing date nights where we do NOT talk about anything serious. We go to movies, concerts, dinners and just try to have fun. It's a great reminder of why we fell in love in the first place and helps us connect again. We try to go out twice a month - just the two of us - something fun. I hope to keep it up after the baby arrives - we'll see.
you know, it took me a long time to really get this.. but I finally figured out it's OK not to just totally be gah gah in love with your husband all the time. Sometimes I do want him to go on a long bike trip. Or heck, just go anywhere but in front of me. And that's ok. I used to think that made me a bad person. I think he figured that out too, and sometimes we're just OK with watching TV in separate rooms and not calling eachother 10x a day.
Davez has also gone from A to about S... (not at Z, no way) when it comes to talking about things. And I've done a helluva lot better actually LISTENING.
and as ChristaKim says dealing with a loss also adds anxiety to a relationship. So it is important that men understand how we feel- are they ever goign to get it - not completely since we went through it physically, but they can sympathize and also express how they feel. they feel the loss of a baby -emotionally, but they don't completely understand the sorry 100%. Talking really helps in this case.
When we had an early loss, DH was so sad. I was more angry. I was almost done even TTC. I wanted to move to adoption or use a gestional surrogate but he talked to me and we decided to continue trying. So we had to talk about our feelings and be on the same page.
As most on here, we have had a lot to deal with. Unforunately, IF isn't just getting pregnant - but also staying pregnant. All of this can cause so much strain on the marriage.
We try to also focus on both of us -without DS. Get out and spend time alone.
I think IF actually strengthened our marriage. We are both very independent people and IF really made us work together as a team and support one another. We have lived fairly charmed lives and having to face the adversity and figure out if this was the route we really wanted was a powerful challenge for us.
With that said (and I know this can be flameworthy) I tried to get pregnant for 34 months. I had 2 surgeries, 2 acupuncturists, countless u/s, 4 IUI's, and 2 IVF's and more timed/staged sex than a prostitute who moolights as a porn star. While all of TTC was difficult, I'm not sure the "strengthening our marriage part" really started until the 2nd year or so-- the first year was a lot of frustration with one another that could have sunk us. In a way I'm actually a little (just a little) thankful for the extra time and obstacles that helped us see how badly we really wanted it and how much we loved each other to support one another through so much.
We went through a rough patch, for sure. After we got the Dx and made the decision to use donor sperm, DH took several steps back and said he wasn't ready for kids yet. I'm sure it stemmed from his feelings about the IF but he wasn't really in tune with that. He just knew that he wasn't ready to move forward in spite of the fact that we had just spent 6 months trying on our own. This was very difficult for me b/c I was already in TTC mode, but also, I was AMA and was really playing with fire by waiting. But I decided the DH was more important to me than my non-existent child and since it took me so long to find him it wasn't like I was just going to leave him and hope to find someone else in time. No way! He's a diamond in the rough. Plus, I had faith that he would come around before too long. Also, during this time he wasn't a fan of talking about the subject - and normally he's a decent communicator. Well, I'm a big talker but I had to respect that he needed time & space.
So, a year later I told him I'd at least like to get some testing done to see whether I was even a candidate for IUI. Fortunately, my hormones & HSG looked good, but my OB said that wasn't a guarantee that they'd hold out for much longer. She stressed that if we were going to do this, it should be now. So, I passed that along to DH and much to my surprise, he said, "Okay then, let's do it." He gave up his own reservations for me. But he's been 100% on board ever since.
I guess our success in dealing with IF had to do with respect and compromises more than anything.
LO #1 - 1 unmedicated/self-monitored IUI w/ donor sperm.
LO #2 - 1 m/c, 2 BFNs, 4th IUI worked (unmedicated/self-monitored with new donor sperm).
Life is beautiful!
hahahaha
Also, just 'talking' doesn't exactly solve the universe. As seasoul says, sometimes you have to NOT TALK to let your DH know that you understand he doesn't want to talk about everything. That is huge and sometimes you have to do that...
After our 2nd tri loss, it *helped* me to talk about our baby daily...it actually didn't *HELP* DH at all. He finally told me that. He said 'it really hurts me to talk about the loss'. Men are from mars, etc. Once I got that, I knew I couldn't discuss things with him about that - at least not daily but he brought it up when he wanted to discuss it. That worked so much better.
Ok, I'll be quiet now...
well, we know that we choose to stay together regardless of IF, and we also tend to share our IF story to anyone and I do mean anyone, who will listen! I overhead the checker at the grocery store telling a coworker about giving his wife a trigger shot and I jumped in and introduced my IVF baby. My husband has a FB photo gallery of our upcoming IVF prep.
I think by talking about it, we remove some of the anger and shame and it loses some of it's power. And when it is not the biggest thing in the room, your marriage can be!
Love this. Just love it.
We looked at it very matter of factly, this was a health issue that we didn't have much control over but would see specialists & try things that could help it. We also viewed it as in the grand scheme of things, there could be so many worse things. A lot of women on here hate this but I really just counted my blessings & saw that we had so many good things in our lives & this was a stumbling block but should not be something that controlled our lives. ?It helped that we were open to adoption & other possible options for starting our family. We were very much on the same page with everything.
Also (and this is based upon knowing MH & what he's like), I did not talk about it constantly with him unless I really needed to (and limited it to the times when I REALLY needed to), I didn't make him read books/articles, do research, go to all my appts (except the important ones) etc. THe only time I asked him to read anything related to IF was right before we did IVF so he would know a little bit about the meds/procedures & know what to expect, and even then I just marked certain parts of a book that were pertinent to him. ?While it was consuming my mind to a certain extent, I did not impose that on him b/c I know it doesnt consume men like it does women. ?He was/is very tolerant of the time that I spend on message boards like this one & I think he appreciates that I have an outlet and people to talk to about it so that he did not have to think about it all the time. He likes to read a ton of sports &news online so we each have our thing.
Really, I made a conscious decision from day one of TTC that if we had troubles, I was not going to let it take over my life & it never did. ?I had rare breakdowns & hid those from him on occasion because I knew there was nothing he could do and he would feel helpless & it would just make the situation worse- I can just cry some things out on my own & get over it.
Everyone is different in their needs & what their husband/marriage is like though, so I know my way would not work at all for a lot of people. ?
GL!?
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart) Our first love and loss 7/2/07
3 cycles clomid TI = BFNs
3 cycles clomid Ovidrel IUI = BFNs
6/27/08 Surprise BFP = chemical pg
IVF#1 July 08 BFP @7dp3dt
TTC #3 since February 2010
FET Sept. and Oct. 2010=BFN's
IVF#2 June 2011=BFP
We tried to keep reminding ourselves and each other that we wanted a baby to add to our wonderful family of two. We kept (and still keep) our marriage at the forefront. We talk a lot and keep the lines of communication open. We also have come to understand that we can be upset with each other, even very angry, and that it has nothing to do with how much we love each other. So we can vent, argue, take a long walk when we need to and realize that it's not something threatening to our marriage.
Also, as PP said, I've learned to see the signs when DH needs to not talk about things and just have peace and quiet from me. Finally, we snuggle a lot. I find that it's impossible to keep up the walls when I'm sitting on his lap.
I actually found that struggling through IF together, while not easy, brought us closer together. We realized that we are very blessed with everything we already have and each other. And we came to understand that we didn't need a baby to make us happy - we already were even though we were very sad about the prospect of not having children.