one man. three cups. (part 1)

***BUCKLE UP!! It’s a “guest post” from my husband, who has shown himself to be funnier and decidedly more charming than me.***

“Do you feel like this makes you less of a man?”

I don’t answer for a bit, more out of confusion than anything.

“Because of the results?” she follows with.

I’m in a doctors office for the third time in six months, with my wife holding my hand, as a GP tells me a story I’d already heard… my sperm is a touch faulty. Not that there isn’t any – it’s just that it appears they never got the swimming lessons that I had to endure as a kid. The poor buggers are struggling to move forward and are a little bit deformed – which is a pretty decent metaphor for how I feel in life most of the time to be honest.

She’d been tactful up until this point – more so than the first GP. Who was the same GP I’d been seeing all my life. I made the trek across the Westgate out to my childhood home Altona because for some reason the idea of going to a doctor that hasn’t known me my whole life smacks of anxiety. 

I’d been to visit him because my wife and I had been trying for kids for about 12 months without any luck. He told me to go and do a sperm analysis and some blood tests so he could make sure that everything worked.

It all sounded pretty straight forward. Get a couple of jabs in the arm, then go home and whack off into a very small cup. The biggest hurdle as far as I could see was how I’d aim, mid orgasm, into something that wasn’t much larger than your average espresso cup.

Challenge accepted.

Attempt Number 01

I decided to do this one at home due to the fact that masterbating in a random room in a random building was a bit much for me. SPOILER ALERT: it would soon become common place.

It was as expected – very uncomfortable and logistically difficult. I learnt some tough lessons like why it’s important to take the cap off BEFORE you start rather than scrambling to remove it mid jerk.

With the sample collected, I jumped in the car and bolted down the highway to get my swimmers to the nearest collection point. I was told I had one hour to get the sample there safe. I was Jack Bauer in every series of 24 – I had my objective, and a clock counting down in real time.

With the nervous swagger of a kid at a blue light disco, I handed over the sample with an awkward smile as the nurse looked me square in the eye “Full sample? Or Half sample?”

I responded with a shrug and a painfully drawn out “Fuuuullllll???” She rolled her eyes and ticked the box marked “FULL”.

I found myself back in the doctors office a couple of days later, the one in Altona. I’d got a call the day before saying “I better come in” which are words you definitely never want to hear from a doctor. Especially if his practice is in Altona – I fucking hate the West Gate.

I sat in silence as he threw around the words “abnormal, strange, unbelievable” and phrases like “in all my career I’ve never seen results this bad”. His rambling coming to a halt when he realised that I’d started to cry. 

“…oh yes, of course. Well – this would be a bit of a shock I guess wouldn’t it?”

I swear I saw him throw a glance to the door when he realised I was starting to lose it. Like he’d come to the realisation that if he didn’t get me out of there soon he’d be in danger of missing his 10am tee off down at Kooringal Golf Club.

As I walked out of his door and began to trudge down the corridor with water silently dribbling down my face I heard him call out after me. I turned – assuming he’d follow with…

“Nick – turns out I fucked up and was reading someone else’s results. You’ve actually got more lead in the pencil than your average HB. Congratulations you virile bastard!”  

Instead he just smiled back at me and whispered “Go Bombers”, coupled with a half hearted thumbs up.

This was back in April, so considering the season the Bombers had – he can go fuck himself.

Attempt Number 02

My new GP laughed when I told her that I drove the first sample to the collection point on a 40 degree day… on the passenger seat of my car.

She suggested that I’d potentially “scrambled” my boys. She continued to giggle as I tried to defend my leaving them in the sun as my attempt to “keep them warm”.

So off it was to do attempt number two in the hope that the first crack was just an unfortunate case of scrambling. This time I decided maybe it was better to do it in a clinic rather than at home after all.

My wife kindly offered to drive. Turns out the jerk station (my term – not theirs) was close to a place where she could get her eyebrows done – she’s never not multitasking.

Once inside, the nurse showed me to my room and pointed out the features with the cool demeanour of a real estate agent that clearly has other interested buyers. I got a tour of the bathroom (for washing up pre and post), the DVD player and stack of porn DVDs and the chest of drawers full of old porn mags. 

She also pointed out the red leather couch (oooooo sexy) and a pile of “couch protectors” that one puts down to avoid sitting in previous tenants crusty old misfires. It was at this point I finally understood the meaning of the “half sample”.

The place was also covered in signs pleading with people not to steal the magazines or DVDs. I guess the problem got so bad they had to stop stocking the 4K BluRays – which is a bloody shame cause I would’ve appreciated the crisp 4K resolution.

Again I was under the “cock” clock – although this round Jack Bauer had his time cut to 15min. The time pressure merely adding to the promise of an exciting climax (sorry – couldn’t help myself).

With the 2nd load (sorry) in the can, I marched outside with my head hung in shame. My wife told me I looked like I was running from the scene of a crime. The fact that she was parked in the middle of the street with the engine still running probably didn’t help.

“Why would I feel like less of a man?” I responded.

The GP pauses for a bit. She’s doing her best counsellor impression after telling me again that my second results hadn’t been great. An improvement but a mild one at best.

“It’s just that a lot of men do when they find out they’re possibly infertile”.

I sit on this for a bit as she smiles back at me. Oddly, that was the last place my brain ventured. My initial reaction had been one of anger – my middle class white privilege rearing its ugly entitled head. 

“I think I’m more pissed off that I’m a young, active, healthy guy and yet Barnaby Joyce can manage to have a kid but I can’t.”

You can’t argue with that logic. 

It’s not the response she was expecting so she quickly moves on from the topic, sensing that the masculinity thing had been an itty bitty sore spot. Clearly had, considering it’s stuck with me.

What has the ability to produce sperm got to do with being a man? What even is being a man these days? Or those days? (easy Nick – that’s a deep dive).

It’s funny that since this journey has started and having chosen to speak to people about it, rather than remaining quiet, I’ve discovered a lot of men, friends and family included, have faced a similar issue but felt uncomfortable sharing it. I get that it’s personal and I understand that people deal with it in different ways but what makes it hard is there’s no collective discussion around it. No information out in the world unless you look really really hard and unfortunately – male infertility is more wide spread than you would think and it’s on the rise.

I also think because we’re so uninformed – selfishly men assume it’s going to be the woman where the problem lies. I certainly did – and I felt ashamed when I found out it was me and not my wife. Not because it was me but because I’d made that completely tone deaf uninformed assumption. Luckily for me I married an incredible woman that calls me on that kind of bullshit.

The writing was well and truly on the wall. If we wanted to have a baby, we couldn’t do it alone. We were going to have to “open the marriage” to a paid professional, a petri dish and a fuck tonne of ‘thoughts and prayers’. It was like being challenged to spring back from a career ending supplements saga… involving just as many drugs.

(To be continued…)