reelhooker
05-07-2014, 11:03 AM
This may be a little long winded but what the heck I got a bit to say.
I married my wife maybe 5-6 years ago knowing that we both wanted to have a family. But we also wanted to wait for the right time to have it.
About 4 -5years ago we decided it was time to "give er'"
After the first couple of months we started to wonder, why isn't this working? why isn't she pregnant? After consulting with people we where told that it wont always happen right away. It can take months, or even a year or two for some of the people we knew. (except of course the people who survive on wellfare and have no economical contribution to society).
We decided after a year and a bit of trying to go see our Family doctor.
Our family doctor referred us to the Calgary Fertility clinic for testing. Two weeks later we met with her again to discuss the results.
We where fortunate that everything with my Wife's "system" was in good working order. However at this point out Doctor told me " Unfortunatly you will never have kids"! We where devestated. completely. I knew that I would never run a country, make a medical discovery or really do much different than the average person. I knew the mark I would leave on this world was only what I would leave behind.
We then decided to look into other avenues. Despite the overwhelming feelings we both were dealing with, a family was our main goal. We started looking into Donors. Upon investigating this, found through the Fertility clinic that in fact there WAS a chance that we could have kids together and that My Doctor failed to mention that there was a small chance of retrieval.
It turns out I had a 0.002% Normal morphology rate. This means the rest of them bite their own tails(figuratively). We had found a light. We where willing to do whatever it takes to get what we wanted. We then begin to prepare. What we then found out was that this is a procedure that is not covered by Alberta Health Care. Not only that but it is expensive. The different procedures range in price from hundreds of dollars to thousands of dollars. We of course begin with the least invasive of the procedures. After multiple attempts we moved on to IVF. This is again more expensive and invasive to the carrier. With a 55% healthy success rate you would think that at least one out of multiple attempts would provide success for us. Boy where we wrong. After this we decided we would go all in for the most invasive, risky, time consuming and expensive option. ICSE feel free to look up the terms yourself but I don't feel the need to post them;). well this procedure has about the same success rate as standard IVF. Unless you are me. :( 0-1 on the first go. This is the point in our lives where we sat down and discussed what we where going to do. Keep trying this insanely emotionally challenging and financially draining procedure, look at donor options or adoption. (both options we had been monitoring throughout the duration of these events.)
We decided, mostly upon my Wife's desire to for some reason attempt to create another me, That we would try one more time.
We timed this in conjunction with my return from a hunting trip last fall. One of these procedure envolves months of supplements to myself as well as significant dosages of hormones (Chlomid) for my Wife. The hormones are terrible and result in what the Doctors will relate to as "the worst cycle of their life but for weeks straight" My wife endured mood swings(believe me) severe cramping day long migraines and everything else you see on a normal period times 10. There was no getting along. Working late happened a lot for me. Everything was a fight. I wouldn't even wish this on Justin Trudeau-Maybe Bieber though.. Anyways the best place for me to be during her last to weeks of taking Clomid was out hunting. As far away as possible. The poor girl had to go through those weeks alone.
Then it got worse. The Friday before I returned (with the procedure booked for the following week) she went in for blood tests. She received the news that there was a problem with the results and she had to come in for more tests. She returned and had more blood taken and was told to wait until they called her to return for the results.
I returned the next day to the most hysterical person you can ever imagine. We made it through the weekend with the expectation of being told that either we would not be able to proceed or worse, that there was something else wrong.
Monday morning was hard to go to work. Sitting at my desk I get a phone call from my wife at about 1pm. Ok, she's not crying, that is good. She then tells me that the nurse had called. They explained that in their words " Miss ********, we wanted to call you and let you know that we are not able to proceed with your scheduled procedure. Your results are back from your bloodwork and it turns out that you.....are 6 weeks pregnant!" she confirmed it with them twice, had them double check her file and yes, it was true. I first thought she was playing a really mean joke to be honest but no, it was true.
So the moral of this is, if you cant knock her up, go hunting for two weeks and see who does.. No just joking. It turns out the doctor put the date on a weekend we spent together with too much wine and just eneugh fun.
All that and it happened naturally (which increases the chances of healthy baby)
Why I wanted to write this however is because if there are others out there going through this feel free to pm me should you have any questions and concerns you may want to ask a person who has been thought it. And secondly because it is expensive. I don't mean like you cant buy that new gun expensive. I mean like 10k + every time you do the procedure expensive. A procedure with -60% success rate. We did 5 procedures unsuccessfully.. No, I'm not asking for money ;) At least not for me..
We where and are fortunate eneugh to have jobs and income that allowed us to do this but there are many family's that have to get line of credit's, remortgage and or end up having to claim bankruptcy in order to have these procedures. Or they just never get to try.
That being said there is a petition to get the government to cover these service. As well there is a program called "Generations of Hope" that helps families with the funding they need to have a family and children to love.
I personally find it embarrassing that in Alberta the Government will provide funding for a sex change but will do nothing to help families with fertility issues. -Dont worry about Quebec though, through funds received from guess where, Quebec offers this service with limitations (single embryo transplant only) for free to it's residents.
Anyways friends, if you are looking for somewhere to make a charitable donation next year or feel like maybe this or part of these services should be covered by health care please, please sign the petition or make what donation you can for a family that only wants to love their child. Thank you for if you took the time to read this all.
BTW we are expecting a healthy little boy in the next couple of weeks and could not be happier about it. So happy to be having our baby that was five years in the making.
Petition :www.generationsofhope.ca/site/petition.php
To Donate:www.generationsofhope.ca/site/donate.php
I married my wife maybe 5-6 years ago knowing that we both wanted to have a family. But we also wanted to wait for the right time to have it.
About 4 -5years ago we decided it was time to "give er'"
After the first couple of months we started to wonder, why isn't this working? why isn't she pregnant? After consulting with people we where told that it wont always happen right away. It can take months, or even a year or two for some of the people we knew. (except of course the people who survive on wellfare and have no economical contribution to society).
We decided after a year and a bit of trying to go see our Family doctor.
Our family doctor referred us to the Calgary Fertility clinic for testing. Two weeks later we met with her again to discuss the results.
We where fortunate that everything with my Wife's "system" was in good working order. However at this point out Doctor told me " Unfortunatly you will never have kids"! We where devestated. completely. I knew that I would never run a country, make a medical discovery or really do much different than the average person. I knew the mark I would leave on this world was only what I would leave behind.
We then decided to look into other avenues. Despite the overwhelming feelings we both were dealing with, a family was our main goal. We started looking into Donors. Upon investigating this, found through the Fertility clinic that in fact there WAS a chance that we could have kids together and that My Doctor failed to mention that there was a small chance of retrieval.
It turns out I had a 0.002% Normal morphology rate. This means the rest of them bite their own tails(figuratively). We had found a light. We where willing to do whatever it takes to get what we wanted. We then begin to prepare. What we then found out was that this is a procedure that is not covered by Alberta Health Care. Not only that but it is expensive. The different procedures range in price from hundreds of dollars to thousands of dollars. We of course begin with the least invasive of the procedures. After multiple attempts we moved on to IVF. This is again more expensive and invasive to the carrier. With a 55% healthy success rate you would think that at least one out of multiple attempts would provide success for us. Boy where we wrong. After this we decided we would go all in for the most invasive, risky, time consuming and expensive option. ICSE feel free to look up the terms yourself but I don't feel the need to post them;). well this procedure has about the same success rate as standard IVF. Unless you are me. :( 0-1 on the first go. This is the point in our lives where we sat down and discussed what we where going to do. Keep trying this insanely emotionally challenging and financially draining procedure, look at donor options or adoption. (both options we had been monitoring throughout the duration of these events.)
We decided, mostly upon my Wife's desire to for some reason attempt to create another me, That we would try one more time.
We timed this in conjunction with my return from a hunting trip last fall. One of these procedure envolves months of supplements to myself as well as significant dosages of hormones (Chlomid) for my Wife. The hormones are terrible and result in what the Doctors will relate to as "the worst cycle of their life but for weeks straight" My wife endured mood swings(believe me) severe cramping day long migraines and everything else you see on a normal period times 10. There was no getting along. Working late happened a lot for me. Everything was a fight. I wouldn't even wish this on Justin Trudeau-Maybe Bieber though.. Anyways the best place for me to be during her last to weeks of taking Clomid was out hunting. As far away as possible. The poor girl had to go through those weeks alone.
Then it got worse. The Friday before I returned (with the procedure booked for the following week) she went in for blood tests. She received the news that there was a problem with the results and she had to come in for more tests. She returned and had more blood taken and was told to wait until they called her to return for the results.
I returned the next day to the most hysterical person you can ever imagine. We made it through the weekend with the expectation of being told that either we would not be able to proceed or worse, that there was something else wrong.
Monday morning was hard to go to work. Sitting at my desk I get a phone call from my wife at about 1pm. Ok, she's not crying, that is good. She then tells me that the nurse had called. They explained that in their words " Miss ********, we wanted to call you and let you know that we are not able to proceed with your scheduled procedure. Your results are back from your bloodwork and it turns out that you.....are 6 weeks pregnant!" she confirmed it with them twice, had them double check her file and yes, it was true. I first thought she was playing a really mean joke to be honest but no, it was true.
So the moral of this is, if you cant knock her up, go hunting for two weeks and see who does.. No just joking. It turns out the doctor put the date on a weekend we spent together with too much wine and just eneugh fun.
All that and it happened naturally (which increases the chances of healthy baby)
Why I wanted to write this however is because if there are others out there going through this feel free to pm me should you have any questions and concerns you may want to ask a person who has been thought it. And secondly because it is expensive. I don't mean like you cant buy that new gun expensive. I mean like 10k + every time you do the procedure expensive. A procedure with -60% success rate. We did 5 procedures unsuccessfully.. No, I'm not asking for money ;) At least not for me..
We where and are fortunate eneugh to have jobs and income that allowed us to do this but there are many family's that have to get line of credit's, remortgage and or end up having to claim bankruptcy in order to have these procedures. Or they just never get to try.
That being said there is a petition to get the government to cover these service. As well there is a program called "Generations of Hope" that helps families with the funding they need to have a family and children to love.
I personally find it embarrassing that in Alberta the Government will provide funding for a sex change but will do nothing to help families with fertility issues. -Dont worry about Quebec though, through funds received from guess where, Quebec offers this service with limitations (single embryo transplant only) for free to it's residents.
Anyways friends, if you are looking for somewhere to make a charitable donation next year or feel like maybe this or part of these services should be covered by health care please, please sign the petition or make what donation you can for a family that only wants to love their child. Thank you for if you took the time to read this all.
BTW we are expecting a healthy little boy in the next couple of weeks and could not be happier about it. So happy to be having our baby that was five years in the making.
Petition :www.generationsofhope.ca/site/petition.php
To Donate:www.generationsofhope.ca/site/donate.php