So, I shall not dwell in the hellish Land of the Sperm Analysis forever. (I know, you were worried.) I appreciate all your kind words and wise advice (seriously, some of the suggestions made so much sense. I need to go back and take basic physics. And maybe biology. Or one of those X-rated courses they were always offering in college under the heading of "sociology." Anything with "sexualities" in the title was good for at least a few nudie photographs. On that subject, sort of, I have some VERY Catholic friends who on their honeymoon, despite not being, er, novices [you know, they were reformed], were having such a difficult go of things that they went to the store and bought a how-to book. And not the "for Dummies" one, I believe, something with pictures).
Also enormously reassuring is that even people who are not working from quite the same framework I am found this whole ordeal awful as well. Why does that make me feel better? Maybe for kind of the same reason it's so nice to have other people with whom to go through infertility...it makes me feel human, when IF often inclines me not to.
Also good for dredging one from the depths of the Lake of Spermlessness is a sense of humor. Fortunately, my husband has one. When I came home yesterday, I told him how traumatized I was and that I may never want to (try to) have sex again, and he laughed at me for being a prude, and, honestly, I felt better. If he'd fetched out a crucifix and the holy water (we have some, actually), I'd have been pretty worried.
There is, after all, an appropriate role for sperm.
Frankly, my DH had a worse day than I did. Our elderly neighbors have a beautiful rose garden - I mean, magnificent. Over seventy individual rose bushes, dozens of varieties. All now in bloom. And the ladies from the wife's art group were at her home for their regular meeting, so they held it in the rose garden. My DH was sitting on our patio having a cup of coffee, and a gaggle of grandmothers were wandering around the garden, oohing and ahing in the most or.gasmic of tones, and the mockery was more than he could take. He said he barely restrained himself from marching over there and doing in the whole lot of them. (This shared inclination toward sudden violence is what makes us SOUL MATES.)
So we were at home yesterday evening discussing our recent traumatic experiences, when he suddenly called over from our room, "Should I throw out these condoms next to the bed?" GROSS. Ten hours after the fact, we still had condoms strewn about our bedroom like the scene of some junior high incompetently attempted contraceptive orgy. "No," I replied, "I'm making a scrapbook of our journey to have a baby, and I'm going to stick them to one of the pages." He emerged from our room. "Hey, that's a really good idea."
Seriously?
