Decisions about fertility

[BertieBotts]

Posted on infertility too but looking for more relationship based answers, I think.

DH has always known he had fertility issues. He's been honest with me from the start. I didn't take this lightly at all but decided in the end I wanted to be with him. Assumed we'd go through everything together and take it as it comes.

Now we are looking at TTC, he said to me "I'll have any test you want me to have". Thought wording was a bit odd - it turns out that he doesn't mind having a test, but he's scared - shit scared - of knowing what the result is, so he thought that he could go for the test but only I could find out the results and not tell him

He's going by garbled, cobbled together information from his family and has made his mind up what his "condition" is and doesn't want to know if it's worse. I'm frustrated by this, I don't want hearsay, I want to speak to a doctor. From internet research into the condition, it results in a chance of abnormalities, but depending on which kind he has, will decide whether the foetus is viable, causing disabilities, or not, causing miscarriage. We can find out which with a simple test and it's really upsetting me that he doesn't want to. He says it's like having a test to find out whether in the future he'll get cancer. I feel like avoiding it is like not finding out whether you've got a chance to avoid cancer.

I feel like he's made up his mind (he wants to just try, as normal, to have a child and assume everything is fine unless it's not happening) and he's just handed over responsibility to me. I feel really crushed, like we're not making the decision together, like the weight is all on my shoulders, like he's sticking his head in the sand.

I get that it's more emotional for him than it is for me since it's all tied up in him being "broken" or potentially harming our future child, and I get that he's had around 10 years to think about this whereas I've had 3 to think about it half heartedly and these last couple of weeks/months to really stare it head on. I said maybe I'm being selfish and he said that he thought I was. He later apologised for that.

We've talked again since this and I asked if he would be up for going to a meeting/discussion with a doctor, or a geneticist, to ask what options we have and what if anything we can do to reduce any risks. He has said yes, but I don't feel like he's going to go in with an open mind. He's already made up his mind that he doesn't want any kind of test. I suppose I'm hoping that this might change his mind which is silly. But then maybe they will bring up other options which neither of us have considered.

Has anyone ever been through anything like this? How do you deal with something like it? I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place. I think he's being selfish, actually, but then I can't be mad at him for being scared. Argh. I'm less upset than I was earlier and I feel like we've got somewhere but I'm worried that it won't change anything and we'll be back at square one.

It shouldn't be on you like this.

But. He's lived with this all his life so he formulated a coping mechanism of avoidance and fear when he was perhaps quite young.

At this point he is in a position where it could all become a reality. He has fallen into the immature coping mechanism.

He needs help to develop a new, mature approach.

How, I don't know. Counselling? You need to keep talking. Try not to pressurise him at first - allow him to move towards an adult approach.

Good luck.

Ok, I'm coming in this from his perspective, having know about my infertility since I was 17 years old. I was honest and open with DP when we met at the age of 23.

At 26, he started talking about having children, and I'm not afraid to say, I nearly ran as fast as the wind.

Knowing something, or the potential of something not happening for 10 years is hard. During that time you are shocked, in denial, you resist in, you are angry about it, angry at the wrong people and at yourself, and you may even shut it out and pretend it isn't happening.

What you forget in that 10 years is that technology changes, research improves, tests are easier and things start to look promising. Your DH isn't at this stage yet, he's likely be beating himself up for having to put you through the "process" that you'll both have to go through (ie investigations, tests, potential vid, miscarriage etc). He potentially is trying to protect you and himself.

He may benefit from this perspective. He may benefit from you questioning him on if children are important in his / your lives and for him to genuinely think about before seeing anyone or having tests. He needs to be 100% about this. It took me a while to realise "I want to be a parent" a long while, and it was a combination of things that made me realised. The first was my DP asking me honestly and giving me the option to say yes or no and knowing he would be happy with either answer.

Our life now has a 2.8 year old ds and he is amazing. Our life would have been amazing without him. Not in a awful way, but we planned for both no children and children. We were lucky and got our ds. I needed to know my DP would be ok if it didn't happen.

Sorry for rambling, but I hope this gives some insight in to his potential thought process.

I don't know about selfish but there seems to be nothing at all to be gained from him keeping his head in the sand and an awful lot to lose. His 'cobbled together' self-diagnosis appear to be the source of the fear and the reality could be worse but it could just as easily be better. Just to plough ahead with ttc and - what? - hope for the best? - could end up impacting three lives.

I'd suggest you go for the meeting with the doctor tell him to be honest about his fears and see if they can reassure him.

That's really helpful, from both of you but especially from "his" perspective. We are similar ages to your post. He talked last night about being worried that if we couldn't have children it might end the marriage and I was horrified because I had no idea he was worried about it to that extent. I already have a DS from a previous relationship who he sees - really - as his own son. I do want more children, he wants children, but I have struggled with DS at times and I've sort of rationalised that if it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen. I was upset that he thought it was so important to me he'd consider leaving. I would love to go through the whole children thing with him but if we can't then we can't.

Similar ages to Dippy's post. He found out at about 15 and we're 25, almost 26 now.

We both have been honest that we wanted children since we first got together three and a half years ago.

I suppose I'm more detached and I'm able to look at it from a head perspective whereas he's hurting and scared, and he doesn't DO hurting or scared.

If he's brought it up Bertie (thinking you'll leave him), that might be the fear, rather than the actual results. Perhaps in a day or two, write him a letter with how much he means to you, kind of a love letter, one that he can read when he's worried about you. Let him know you are prepared to go through the process, the ups and downs etc, but also how life without a sibling for ds will still be absolutely awesome - nice holidays, day trips, time with ds, weekends away when ds is older etc etc.

Just trying to think of things that helped me

Just saw this, and before I got to your last post, was starting to realise your OH is scared. Infertility issues are awful at the best of times. Go and see your GP together and ask for a referral to an expert - don't be fobbed off. That way, at least you can both make a decision about what you want to do.
Tell your OH what you've told us though - that you want to be with him whatever happens. It sounds like he needs to hear it.

I'm early 30's now, but the discussions started at 25/26, IVF at 27-28 and ds arrived aged 28. The process takes time, the tests take time, everything takes ages!

Bertie, would he agree to simply speak to a fertility expert about this? With you? No tests, no pressure, but more, you know, reliable information about options etc.

After several MCs we found out that I carry a genetic problem that predisposes me to conceiving a baby which may either be non-viable or severely disabled.
I am very lucky to have 4 healthy children (in fact, my MCs had nothing to do with this condition, but that's another thread), but one of them carries the same problem which does not affect his health, but may affect his ability to father a healthy child in the future.
Now, in men in the case of our problem, a semen cell carrying the problem is less likely to win the race to the egg so far less likely to actually achieve a pregnancy. The risk for men of fathering an affected pregnancy is far, far lower than the calculated 1:4.

I can bore you to tears about the details of this, but what I am really trying to say, I think it would be helpful if you both could not look at this as a fertility issue or even a relationship issue (although of course it is), but maybe as an anxiety issue on your DH's part?

Honestly, I'd ask him to remove his head out of the sand and get decent advice before you both have to confront the possibility that you cannot have children together.

Pacific, yes, that's what I asked him and he said yes to that. And I asked if he was just saying yes to stop me worrying/being upset and he said no, he is happy to do that.

I think that would put us on a more even footing and enable us to go forwards. I'm feeling frustrated and upset that he won't let me into his fear and worry about this which he's had for the last 10 years or more, and that is selfish on my part. Of course that's going to be hard for him.

I know it can take time and most likely will take a long time which is why I'm unsure - in actual fact it's been him pushing more recently saying he's ready to start TTC soonish (actually my pill prescription runs out next month, so it was sort of whether to renew it or not.) I think it's too soon and we need more information whereas he wants to try first and get info if it's not working. While I know you can't choose whether your child is going to be disabled or not, I just think it's totally irresponsible to go ahead knowing there might be a higher chance and not even find out whether it's possible to reduce or avoid that chance. I know it doesn't rule out other disabilities or, god forbid, an accident happening to DS which made him disabled later in life. I know it's not possible to rule it out completely.

I know he's rubbish at dealing with emotional stuff in general. I want to approach this as being a new thing for both of us - I've never gone through the whole "TTC" thing before as DS was an accident. The other thing - sorry if this is drip feeding - but we know it's possible for him to conceive because he conceived a baby with an old girlfriend when they were very young. The pregnancy didn't continue to term, but he doesn't know whether she miscarried or aborted (and never will).

I guess my biggest fear is not not being able to conceive. It's more having a stillbirth or full term disabled child and finding out later that we could have had the option to terminate. Early miscarriage/termination, although I know it will/would be upsetting and hard to go through, I could find easier to cope with. From some more googling (argh, not helpful!) it seems as though it might be possible to identify problems early on in the pregnancy, but I worry that unless we have previous proof that there may be a potential problem, we won't have access to such a test.

But I suppose all of this we could discuss with a doctor and as he is willing to go to that kind of appointment, I should stop thinking about it and worrying about it until we know what options we have available.

I guess my biggest fear is not not being able to conceive. It's more having a stillbirth or full term disabled child and finding out later that we could have had the option to terminate

I v much relate to that.
That is why I opted for invasive antenatal testing - not saying that's what you should do, but with the information we had there was no doubt in my mind that I had to know and that I would have terminated a severely affected pregnancy.

Don't TTC without knowing what you are dealing with.
And yes, stop over thinking things right now - you don't know enough about what the problem even is