The little silver picture frame.

Since this Sunday is Father’s Day, I’m taking a break from our usual Terminology Tuesday for a more personal post about becoming a father myself. We’ll resume Terminology Tuesday next week.

As an Infertility doctor having suffered infertility, I can relate to my patient’s frustration and despair.  I feel that I work harder for my patients as I know how it feels to dream of a child and worry that that dream may never become a reality.  Here is a story I wrote about my experience with infertility:

When my wife and I started trying to conceive, we bought a picture frame.  It was a beautiful little silver picture frame with a baby bear holding some balloons and the word “BABY” on the bottom of the frame.  We placed the frame on our mantle and we looked at it every evening with great anticipation that soon a sonogram photo of our first baby would fill the frame.

We began trying.  And trying.  And trying.  Nothing happened.

Soon, trying became a chore.  The chore ruined the romance.  But, we were dreaming of a baby so, we kept trying.  We used ovulation predictor kits and tried every other day around ovulation.  We even performed our “chore” every day for an entire month.  Surely, we thought, that performing the deed every day would send a baby our way!

No baby.

Being an Infertility doctor, I felt embarrassed that I couldn’t I get my own wife pregnant.  I ordered every test in the book.  Everything was normal.

We felt ashamed.  We felt frustrated.  We felt sad.  We felt despair slipping into our lives.  For a very long time, we didn’t tell anyone.  We suffered alone with our infertility.

We eventually confided in a few friends who did not have problems with infertility.  Our well meaning friends would tell us their prescriptions for successful conceptions.  It worked for them, why wouldn’t it work for us?   “Just get drunk and do it in the back of your car,” one friend said.  “Prop a pillow underneath your bottom after sex,” another friend ordered.  But, none of the home remedies worked.  Nothing seemed to help.

Pressure to have a child mounted with every phone call from our parents.  “When am I getting a grandchild!?”  They would ask.  The parental pressure added more weight to the heavy burden of infertility that was already on our shoulders.

Holidays were tough.  There were little babies and kids running around everywhere reminding us of our infertility.  Even a trip to the mall was difficult.  All we would see at the mall were pregnant women everywhere.  We felt time slipping away.  The biological clock was ticking louder.  Our dreams of growing old with our children were slowly fading and being replaced with the possibility of growing old without children.

3 years passed.   Our little silver picture frame remained empty.  We contemplated putting the frame away many times.  But, we kept it on the mantle and brushed the dust away.  That little frame gave us hope to keep trying.

We finally decided to try IVF.  It didn’t work.  We tried IVF again.  Christine conceived and we were overjoyed.  But, Christine started bleeding and we miscarried.  We were crushed.  We tried IVF 2 more times without any conception.  The emotional rollercoaster was becoming nauseating and both of us began wondering if we should continue the ride.  Not only that, our funds in our bank account were depleting and our hopes were fading.

We moved to Dallas where I started a job with Dallas IVF and we tried IVF again.  We conceived on our first attempt in Dallas.  As we had a miscarriage in the past, we were cautiously optimistic.  As the baby grew, our frustration and fear and despair of infertility began melting away.  Soon our thoughts changed from infertility to the color of the baby room and names for the baby.

We told our parents by giving them the little silver picture frame filled with a sonogram picture of our child.  Our parents were so elated.  My mom cried.  My dad cried.  That moment was awesome!

This year, I will be experiencing my second Father’s day.  Being a father is one of the best jobs in the world.  You never know how much you love someone until you see the face of your child.  My son, Collin, is now 1 year old!  I can’t wait to see my son wake up every morning and every day after work.  Watching Collin grow and learn is such a wonderful experience.  The smile my son gives me everyday makes the painful emotional roller coaster of infertility worth it.