The first few months of lockdowns and most time spent at home gave us plenty of opportunities to talk about the after effects of the Cleveland appointment and what we imagined when we thought about the future. But we never did any of that. A few times Isabelle tried introducing the topic only for me to shut it down automatically. One day Isabelle got as close to an ultimatum than she’s ever given me: that ‘if I didn’t start talking to her soon, we weren’t going to make it.” That took my legs out from underneath me and took my breath away. I knew Isabelle was at the end of her rope to say it as bluntly as she did. She knows exactly how I react to stressful and uncontrollable situations. But it needed to be said. I needed a wake-up call and a serious one especially. Talking about it in therapy once a month wasn’t cutting it. If I didn’t trust Isabelle with what I was feeling, then our relationship was already on borrowed time. However, it wasn’t a quick recovery just because I knew I had to start opening up more. It was much easier to shut down, and to stuff all the feelings down until I can smile through the pain.

Stuffing down unprocessed thoughts and painful emotions had been happening since I was younger. I didn’t regularly see males showing emotion at more than just funerals or monumental life moments. I didn’t know that expressing my feelings in an “unmanly” way was OK. I hid a lot of my strongest emotions and cried a lot while listening to music. When I’d listen to music, I’d zone out and go numb, and when I came back to full concentration, I’d ponder all the emotions that I had and how much it affected my morale.

Eventually in high school I had already been on a slippery slope with my mood and mental health and built up enough confidence to tell my mom that I’d like to start therapy if possible. I blamed it on teenage depression and my grandma dying, even though that was three years earlier. What followed was an average story of a teenager navigating high school and depression and anxiety. Other than a few super serious moments, when I chose to shut down and stuff down my feelings instead of unpacking them and truly lost myself.

One coping mechanism I had in high school was telling my friends a story about how I’m struggling but only one part of everything I was feeling. That way no one knew the whole story that may tip them off how bad everything really was. It was selfish and proved to be very harmful to myself. Talking during tough situations is key to having a healthy balance for mental health. When everything keeps getting stuffed further down, nothing new is being processed in the meantime. 

Back to present day, I could not keep going along holding everything in and refusing to tell anyone anything. The problem was, I didn’t know how to vocalize what I was feeling and what I needed to help recover from it. The obvious solution was right in front of my face, if you cannot have kids naturally, and you didn’t want to do a form of IVF, the only option remained adoption or fostering. Not only was I upset about the ongoing issues with what infertility was and how it was already affecting me but I failed to grasp the reality that my version of infertility was permanent.

Infertility does not automatically mean that you cannot have kids naturally. It has an evolving meaning that gives you a time frame of trying to have a baby but it hasn’t worked yet. One part of my diagnosis that felt like it wasn’t achieving the full meaning was that when people hear the word infertile, they name people they knew who were infertile for a certain amount of time but now they have X number of kids. The first idea I thought to look into were support groups for infertility, but then my worst nightmare would keep happening: others would experience infertility for a limited period of time and then get pregnant. And the support group would be happy for them, right? And if not fully personally happy, at least faked in public enough to get past the initial pregnancy announcement.

Most infertility cases including the woman can be treated in some way, while the only official permanent infertility case was the rare Klinefelter’s diagnosis. Everything felt insurmountable and while the information I had was concise and easy to understand, it still seemed like a bad dream that I kept wanting to wake myself from. The situation I was in was the most rare one in my life and I continued to dwell in it alone and wanting company for someone who understood me similarly and could tell me that the pain and suffering would eventually subside. 

Early after the diagnosis, Isabelle and I talked about our plans going forward. And that she was ready to pursue them once I felt comfortable as well. This was an innocent conversation and Isabelle did not place any type of pressure on me to sort out my issues quickly and jump on board. But that’s exactly where my overthinking mind took it. 

One topic that arose while I was wallowing was when Isabelle asked why I was so ready to have a baby when we first discussed trying to have one naturally but then why everything was on pause once we knew the path we’d take after the diagnosis. It was worth considering why that was, but it was the first stone I turned over when looking into my past as to why I felt such a pause. 

I knew I wanted to have kids in some capacity after we got married, but it did take a bit of prodding and encouragement when we agreed we’d start trying. Following the diagnosis, I was wracked with guilt and unhealthy responses for trying to understand what that meant for our future and what was the best way to navigate it. Klinefelter’s is a genetic disorder so it has been with me since I was born, even if I didn’t know about it until just recently. That was the reality and how clear I could make it that the diagnosis didn’t change who I had been for the first 30 years of my life. 

The pause was because I allowed myself to consider that something was telling me that I shouldn’t pursue parenthood. Permanent infertility is the obvious reason. But I had a challenging childhood and adolescence, filled with ongoing doubts about who I was, a good person or a hassle or nuisance to have around? What did I think others saw when they looked at me? Could I separate my experiences growing up and provide a more safe, caring and comfortable home to children that were never mine in the beginning? These doubts overwhelmed me daily and kept me bogged down instead of seeking what was next to start processing this pain and grief.

While this loneliness and doubt grew, guilt also settled in and pulled me further from grasping reality. I didn’t want to be the reason why we could not have biological children of our own. But with everything that I felt with my body, heart and mind trying to make sense of the situation, I was glad that Isabelle wasn’t the one who had to shoulder all that pain and grief. 

We briefly talked about the shame and guilt that I was placing on myself for our infertility. Isabelle reaffirmed that she never blamed me in the slightest for what transpired. I could hear those words repeatedly in my mind, but the anchor wasn’t releasing. She foretold that if I actually was fertile and healthy, they would do tests on her. An earlier test said she had a hormonal imbalance that could be treated with pills or vitamins, but a further test could confirm if it stemmed from a bigger issue. There was no point to do any further testing for Isabelle but even if so, she was under the impression that she could have bigger issues as well. We won’t ever know what those tests would reveal, but Isabelle was almost already convinced that she would have had issues too, perhaps as far as being infertile as well. 

Male infertility is more uncommon than female infertility but it doesn’t have the same representation in published materials or blogs online. This made me feel even more alone. The closest I found was a book written by a man who went to a sperm bank for their IVF journey. So many books about infertility talk about how else to grow your family, with IVF being the main option. Since it wasn’t an option for us, I wanted to find a book that listed difficulties around infertility and to dive into those topics. I was overcome all the time with so many emotions and no healthy way for me to discuss those and feel catharsis as I released the emotions one by one. 

This was the main reason why I wanted to write a book about this that turned into this blog. My recovery from infertility would hit rock bottom multiple times ahead, but that was when I most needed a resource like this to reference. I needed to hear from a male with a lot of emotions who was open with talking rawly about these experiences and feelings. Someone who not only was unable to have children naturally but was stuck in the muck so much that no way out seemed possible. Was it OK to be broken in every sense of the way and holding on for dear life with the relationships you were still pursuing? Everything hurt. And I questioned my commitment to any of it and if I had it in me to keep going.