Infertile Me, Incomplete Me – Part 1
Male Infertility
This is a three part story of a woman who has seen the journey of being infertile very closely. After she completed writing this series and I thanked her for so bravely putting up her story in public she said that she wanted to thank me instead because writing helped her vent out. The anger that was seething deep inside even years later, the frustration, the depression and all that emotions finally got released. Thus, I decided not to edit this at all. This story is sure to touch your heart in a way that no other story ever did as this is story of real life and real emotions. She prefers to publish anonymously under the pen name of SilentCry
Sharing My Infertility Story: The Pain of Feeling Incomplete
No matter how happy we are in our lala land, one air-dropped misguided problem always takes you there from where the return is difficult. If I couldn’t bore a child, my existence is nadir. How convenient is it for the female vagina to make the brain feel inferior so easily. The nightmare started when I missed my period for almost 2 months. I started to fear that I was pregnant and to a certain extent, my fear was coming true. My husband was posted in a far-off location from where only convoy could bring him home.
I made frantic calls to my husband and asked him to come home as I was staying with my in-laws. Tuesday morning was supposed to be officer’s day and we fulfilled all the formalities too. The head of the department arrived, good looking and Dalai Lama like aura. My heart was already sinking because my husband’s field tenure had just started. Staying away from my husband was already coming down heavily upon me; on top of that, a pregnancy with indifferent and nagging in-laws would have been suicidal. He asked me to follow him to the sonography room and clasped my right hand, I felt like the blood stream is flowing on the reverse direction. He whispered “It’s between you and me, what are you doing?” Your hubby wasn’t home since last 3 months, how come you missed your cycle?” I gasped and repeatedly said that I just missed my period that’s all.
He prescribed me with birth control pills for a month. I popped the pill even when there was no sex. I popped and popped the pills issued from the hospital for 8 long months. By that time, I was bloated, deranged and had anger management issues.
On the home front, my in-lwas would taunt me for eating the extra roti. There were discussions with the sister in laws that how I worked in the office for 12 hours and came home to sleep and eat. My pills were giving me a strange dry sensation in my body which I can’t explain. A day before Diwali, dear hubby came home for chutti, so we decided to visit the doctor. The same doctor said run 5 km and get the baby. My hubby by now was convinced that I had no medical issues but fitness issues. Thereafter began another strange journey with calorie counting, watching of my meal portions and getting taunted for weight.
I used to eat to fill my appetite when I was on field work. I couldn’t help but ignore those stares when I would undress before an intercourse. My hubby lost interest in conjugal relations. I missed physical intimacy, honestly. Months passed, I had my cycle, gruesome and painful. No one noticed those dark eyes. My mother in law called an ojha to do the jhaar-poonkh (black magic) as they believed that I was holding a curse.
Many chuttis happened and got over but relationships were deteriorating. I made hapless calls to my parents to take me home but they summed up with stereotype dialogue, tumahara sukh-dukh, ab tumhara hi hai. I was earning merely Rs 15000 in that small town at a media house. I wanted to slit my veins but I imagined that it must painful. Drinking phenyl was equally dicey, what if I survived.
Then one fine day, I went to the hospital again for monthly quota of medicines, change of guards occurred in the gynae department. A lady doctor with a sharp acidic tongue shouted at me on seeing my prescription. “Are you alright, why are you popping these birth control pills?”
I said that I was on treatment. Immediately, I was asked to get an organ test done for checking the functioning of all organs. I called my husband but he said that run 5 kms and problem will be sorted. I waited till New Year when he came for chutti again. The regular visit continued and the doctor asked to get a plethora of diagnostic tests including the skin TB test and LSH, FSH test and thyroid test done. Every day going to pathological labs at various time schedules was hectic. All tests were declared normal and I felt like breathing.
My head was high again…I was fine and fit. While we went for the second time for showing the reports, my husband said that he wants to start a family. That’s what I also wanted by that time. And, then the lady doctor entered the forbidden zone by proposing a test for him, “Capt get a sperm test done?”
Silence and silence prevailed!!!
I will split the entire story into 3 parts-intial diagnosis- Acceptance-ivf
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