Episode 15: The Partner's Point of View with Marcus Blue

Small Batch Sound: Hey everyone and welcome back to Confessions of a Slow Cooker. I'm Mashlyn Blue and today we're gonna switch it up a little bit. I've had up until now, I've talked to so many amazing women about their respective journeys through fertility and infertility, et cetera. But a lot of the time, and certainly with those who I have spoken to thus far, there is a partner, someone who goes through the whole thing top to bottom, beginning to end, with the woman. Now, I hope that this conversation leads to more conversations with more partners on this podcast, but at the very least. I hope it sparks some outside conversations, offline conversations. Today's guest is my partner, my husband, my baby daddy. Marcus Blue. Hi, babe. How's that intro? Yeah, it's good. ⁓ All right. So I feel like the conversation that we're about to have is something that either people have had Or never ever want to have. Because it's awkward. It can be awkward at least. ⁓ I remember when we f I mean, just starting the the process of deciding to try was like it wasn't a bad conversation, but it was still something we had to like go back and forth on. Right? Do you remember this? Well, ⁓ I mean, initially I felt like the timeline kept getting pushed up. It did. On wanting to try to have kids. And I felt I felt like we had collectively agreed that we would wait a little bit and kind of figure our stuff out and be good with us before we started trying to have a kid. But I quickly realized that that was not gonna be the scenario. Okay, well it's it was the scenario until it wasn't. Well COVID hit. Yeah. And I was like, let's just see. We were cooped. ⁓ I know. Anyway. Yes. So it it it The goalpost kept moving in terms of beginning dates. So ⁓ And those early those early months of trying, I know that I was a ⁓ a handful. ⁓ partially because, you know, I You wanted it so bad. I did. And I was I was already nervous and I didn't know why. I run nervous, I guess. I run that way, but ⁓ No, completely. Well, you You couldn't understand at the time the fact that I kept saying I didn't even expect to get married. And so getting married was like beyond my expectations. And if we were gonna have a kid, that was gonna be icing on the cake. And if it and if we didn't, my life was not gonna be destroyed or ⁓ you know, defined in a negative way if we didn't have a kid. And you had a hard time accepting That thinking that I didn't want to have a kid because of your previous background. and again, it I didn't expect you. So the fact that I got that alone was more than I was already anticipating. And so the idea of having a kid, I was simply of the mindset if if we have one, great, ice it on the cake if we don't. My life is still more than what I thought it was gonna be anyway. And I was okay with that. And I loved that answer. And yet I was like, I finally found somebody I want to procreate with. ⁓ my gosh. Like, come on. And you were like, bonus, bonus. And I was like, No, I want to be a mother. With you. Yeah. Compliment. Compliment. Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ okay, so we started trying and it didn't work. And we kept on, you know. Doing everything the the doctor said. We took some tests. It's IUI's. Yep. Evaluated. And ⁓ at some point, I know I asked you to get checked out too, because I had been told that there are a lot of things that like a urologist could do for a guy who you know, for a what it's you know, may be a quick fix. And there are a lot of things that could be a quick fix in that realm. ⁓ and I was like, I'm spinning, I don't want to be spinning my wheels. And feeling like something's wrong with my body if there's something else at play. Because there were some things in my body, but I thought, well, let's just check it out. ⁓ and I feel like you were a little hesitant to do that. Do you remember that? Well, I mean ⁓ yes and I mean, yes and no. I for any guy, initially, you just think, ⁓ the everything works just fine. ⁓ you know, like whatever. But I mean a a brief ⁓ medical background on myself. Whenever I was young, I had what's called a testicular torsion. And it basically rendered one of my testicles almost useless. ⁓ and so when we were doing IUIs and that sort of thing, I we're realizing that my my sperm count was actually going down. And it was at that point where it's like, okay, let's figure out what's going on. ⁓ because like Something's up and there's there's other ways to kind of combat this. And so I wound up going down to see a male fertility urologist in Denver, who was great. Who's great and ⁓ but in the process I learned that I had a cyst and a blockage at the same time. Unbeknownst to me and every other guy who never sees a doctor, ⁓ it is way more common that men do have cysts, even though they're likely benign, ⁓ they exist. And it can very much be a major part of the problem if, you know, if you're trying to trying to have a kid and it's not working out. ⁓ it's actually from from a medical standpoint, a really easy fix. but it's still daunting to say the least, because here I went from thinking, okay, I don't care if we have a kid or not All of sudden thinking I may not even be able to give my wife what what she wants in terms of a kid, and that was just devastating to me. Because all of a sudden my masculinity was down the drain. So ⁓ yeah, I mean, we can keep going down this road of the procedure or or what have you, but I'll let you jump in. Yeah. so we scheduled ⁓ February third. I think it was February third. I went down or we went down ⁓ to Denver and sedated me and went in, I guess, to basically address the blockage and then extract sperm so that we could do Or in vitro, sorry. I was gonna say I in vitro, yeah. Yeah. ⁓ and so I was paranoid. I was terrified. and then it was all just gonna be dead. And so can only back up for just a second. Bef for a whole year, and I've mentioned this on the podcast before, but unless or rather if it's if someone's listening to this for the first time and you don't know our fertility journey, ⁓ A year before this, in February of twenty twenty-three, we went down respectively to Denver to ⁓ the fertility clinic, C C R ⁓ to do our workups ⁓ individually. And right before that, we had had two IUIs where they had had eyes on sperm. We saw the sperm, or not we, they saw the sperm. So there w it was low motility, but they were there. And then We you went down separately because we had different schedules, ⁓ because it's like a whole day thing. ⁓ you went down separately and did your workup and then I did mine a couple of weeks later. And during my ⁓ roundup session, which a lot of the times both of us would have been there the same day and we would have been in the same room. I got terrible news ⁓ that I had to call and share with you, which was that it's not there. Well, y'all Well, y'all were on y'all were you were there. Yes. in person and I was zoomed in and no one had told me any information. Right. I am I am hold on. I'm I am at my office seeing patients and then I am blindsided with the information that I don't have a sperm count. Yeah. And and I'm supposed to kind of keep it together. And she's our our doctor who ⁓ was just talking off the cuff and just kept going as though I knew everything was talking about and I was just like, what is happening right now? I c I have no idea of any of this information. and so part of my thought was, How dare you? Just kind of flippantly ⁓ you know, because the focus was on you and there was no focus on me at that moment. And I felt like it should have been very much on me because of of what was at stake. Right. ⁓ but also the fact that I was at work and was literally about to go into surgery, I was just like. I can't even focus. I can't even like my entire world was just like semi-shattered at that moment. I'm so sorry. I didn't ⁓ first of all, obviously I didn't mean to do that. ⁓ I was kind of numb myself from the news because I like I said, we ⁓ we hadn't we had no reason to think there would be nothing at this stage. It had just been like two months. And so from to going from low but still there, still worth doing IUS to nothing. that wa it was ⁓ shattering. I'm sure more for you than me, but it was I remember it being terrible. Absolutely terrible. All of a sudden I was the problem. Right. And I could still be the problem at that point, but now you were also shoved into the spotlight. And so for the next year, you worked with that you urologist ⁓ remotely, if I recall, ⁓ Trying to get the count the count back up in different ways. I know they put you on Clomid, which did not make you crazy. they put you on a lot of things. Jeez. ⁓ and so for that whole year, it was a long year. You had to do a lot of things and send ⁓ stuff back through the mail and samples. Huh? Yeah. Samples. Samples, yes. And ⁓ nothing. And then that's when he decided, I think this is what's going on. Come here and we'll do this. Yeah, we need to we need to do a procedure. We need to go in and see if we can extract because this other stuff doesn't seem to be working. And he seemed pretty confident. Well, he knew I had assists, like he knew that. ⁓ but he seemed really confident that they could get, you know, retrieve viable modal sperm ⁓ for everything. I wasn't so confident myself, but obviously we were doing this because we wanted to you know, try to figure it out. We wanted to start out of VM. This is this is the reason we couldn't start at the So we went down to Denver. Yeah. So we went down. We were both petrified. ⁓ I'm trying to keep it together and be cool. You are trying to keep it together and be cool. You go back there. I think it's gonna be I know it's not gonna be long, but like I felt like it was like three seconds before the doctor came back out from like fifteen minutes. Yeah, probably it just it felt shorter to me at the time. And 'cause I was starting to write in my journal and I didn't get anywhere. and the doctor came up. Let me say this. me say this. Yeah, hold on. Let me say this. So I was I was laying there and I was coming out of it from being sedated. And I just wanted to know one thing. Did you get anything or did you not? Yeah. And ⁓ I looked at Dr. Cow and I said, Well and he goes, got a gazillion. And I was just like I just dropped my head back on the pillow and was just like all right I can pass out now and and not stress about it anymore. Yeah. So all of a sudden we had, you know, we had what we needed to to actually try to move forward. Right. And that's something that I I mean, first of all, he came out w to me and he had his he still had like all of his garb on and but he put his two thumbs up and he he said the same thing. He said, Got a million. And I was like, ⁓ and we were literally able to talk to our doctor that day or ⁓ my fertility doctor that day and start the schedule. And that's something I wanted to point out to anyone who's going through IVF. There are so many steps. This like you gotta get through this part and then this part. And then both of you have and usually I n ⁓ I felt like it was normally the girl who was the holdup here. ⁓ but this was just an extra hiccup. And one that I mentioned it in the other in some other podcasts when we refer to this moment, but you called it what? This whole this whole procedure. ⁓ ice picking my nuts? Your balls, but yeah. Yeah. And then ⁓ just to put some levity on this, so we we went back f we went back home to Aspen and it was ski season, so you naturally wanted to go skiing right away, even though that was not what you're supposed to do. I ⁓ I went home basically, I woke up and I'm like in this diaper filled with like ice pet. And I'm just like, what just happened? I literally was thinking about the Seinfeld episode where waking up in the dentist chair and you got Tim Watley tucking his shirt back into his pants and the the hygienist or whatever is doing something else and and ⁓ I was just like I don't understand how how I got into this garb because someone had to do this to me. And anyway, had on a ma massive ⁓ soft diaper with cute large cuts. Cute. And we went home and you wanted to ski even though you weren't supposed to right away. Well yeah. Yeah. 'Cause skiing is everything for you. So we went skiing, we were like high on the news, ⁓ so happy. I slapped his leg on the ski on the ski lift, you know, and that hurt unlike anything I've ever experienced. Like the idea of being punched in the balls, except you just had a procedure done on them, so they're massively bruised. And then your wife just slaps as close as she can. I didn't mean it. Right to it. I did not mean it. I thought I was gonna fall off the chair lift at the time. But yeah, well, you wanted to ski right after. And if I recall, every single time we hit the what are those called? The rollers I had to ra had to raise up. Raise up every time we hit a roller on the ski lift. Raised myself after I couldn't take it. But we were going to IVF, we were starting it, and from that point forward, your work, thank you for your service. Your work was done. so let's transition into how it feels to be the partner for someone else going through this kind of thing. You've already done your side of things. So say somebody doesn't have any issues, say it's a it's a a male with no problems, but they have to be the support system ⁓ through all the up and downs. What was that like for you? I mean, to be honest to tell. especially ⁓ d when you don't know how long it's gonna take. one of the things that you honest you you feel like a cog in the wheel when you're at ⁓ these fertility clinics because they see people all every day, tons of people just turning through trying to trying to make it all work. And so I mean, step number one is get a therapist. Like start addressing things prior to even going to a fertility clinic because I don't know, I mean, it it it should be mandatory at the fertility clinics to have therapy and ways to talk about it, ways to work through it. ⁓ you, with all the hormones that were going on and all the injections you were taking, I mean Go for it. Just say it. I that it was a bombshell. ⁓ I'm gonna I'm gonna edit my myself and my language. Go for it. This is a Cussie podcast. Alright, well you were a fucking train wreck. How's that? Okay. And ⁓ I There were so many times where it's like, do I say something? Do I not say something? Can I just walk out of the room? Nope. She's following me out of the room and still talking and yammering at me. And I'm I'm trying to like avoid yet another confrontation. But I don't know how to do this. I'm gonna go run an errand and sneak out of the house. What do you need to go for? Why but like I'm trying to diffuse whatever this is and this is not. This is not any nothing's working. Nothing's working. And then you would just completely break down, you know, in tears and automatically claiming failure with everything and nothing had even happened yet. And, you know, it's like it was just this entire roller coaster. And I'm like whiplash of emotions. And I'm I'm like, I don't I I need somebody to talk to. Like there were there were little times you would go to bed. And I would just sink in the kitchen floor and just cry. And or even like when it was wintertime, go outside in the snow and just sit down in the snow and cry. I'm sorry. Because it was just it it was it was a lot. Yeah. It was a lot. ⁓ what were you feeling? Despair, but at the same time, it's like, all right, if this doesn't work out, is our marriage gonna work out? Yeah. Because it felt like there was so much on the line, not just for us, but definitely for you. And the gravity of the situation, and we haven't even talked about our first try. Yeah. ⁓ but the but the gravity of what was at stake, me seeing the emotional that it was taken on you, which was then also being taken on me, because I here I am just trying to keep things together. Yeah. But two dogs trying to take care of those sort of things. I have an office to go to, I have patients to see, I have to walk to the door and act like everything's fine and dandy. And then, you know, it's like patients come in and it's like a florist or, you know, going to a hair salon. People just tell you all everything that what's going on in their lives. And so you're kind of like a mini therapist for a bunch of other people. I got to the where I like, I just c I can't take this anymore. Like it's y you just need some sort of an outlet, but you don't know what that outlet is. Right. What was yours? I don't even know. I d ⁓ so much of that honestly is a blur. You skied a lot. There's a lot of it but I skied a whole lot, but there was so much that I just I don't even remember. I've kind of blocked it out. Okay. ⁓ there's certain things that I definitely remember vividly, but then there's so much of the rest of it that was also similar all the time that it that's the part that's become a blur. Yeah. Okay. Well So what would you suggest besides therapy to couples who are going through this? Or maybe they went through this and they still have some cobwebs they need to clear around this fertility time because it takes forever. I mean, that's the problem with a one one of the problems with fertility in general is everything takes so freaking long. Like you have to live your life throughout this whole thing. So Not to mention if you even get pregnant, that's still a nine month deal to have to be to you know, something that you have to do alongside life. It's not something that you get to do in a silo. And it definitely not something you get to do in a silo is the fertility problem, you know, the IBF process. Yeah, I mean and you had all your maritime issues and your lining wasn't sloughing, you know, appropriately and it was too thick and then had to put you back on birth control to like re regulate stuff and so there were just so many hurdles along the way and you know, whenever you found out you had to go back on birth control, I like, Chicken little, the sky's falling again and it was just Yeah, I mean i it's a lot. I mean I would I would say to any guys Who might even potentially listen to this, ⁓ that's not a negative thing towards you. just get checked out. Like it's not it's not a slight to your ego, like get over yourself. because ⁓ knowledge is power. And if you don't know, then you can't address something. And ⁓ you know, once I got on the other side of it, it was like, okay, big whoop. But like on the on the front side of it, i it's it's an ego thing. So many guys, for whatever reason, you know, want to take it as a slight that like, ⁓ they can't perform, you know, or whatever it is. It's not performing. It's just like medicine happens. Yeah. Bi biology happens. And ⁓ well take it you're you're a periodonist. So take it to liken it to something that you see as a practitioner that it you know, because it's not down there in that virility part of your like whatever, like if you can liken it to something like you have a cavity, what are you gonna do? Be like, no, I'm too good for, you know, us it getting filled. ⁓ that's not what you do, I realize. But no, but I mean it's just like the body's not a machine and it certainly doesn't heal like one. And there's things that come up that have to be dealt with. And so everything is susceptible to failure. Everything. Teeth, everything else, you know. And just because something is not cooperating doesn't mean it's dead. doesn't mean you're not performing, doesn't mean you're impotent or, you know, erectile dysfunction. It's it's not that. It's okay, why d why do we have a blockage? Why do we have whatever it may be? ⁓ and that's an that's an easy thing to address, but it I think the bigger thing is the ego. Making me a point like just Getting beyond yourself, being vulnerable, allowing another guy to cup your balls and and and feel you up, and to have honest conversations about, you know, your your manhood, ⁓ which is not easy for the vast majority of men. No, and I and maybe a good way to ⁓ shift the ⁓ the conversation and in your brain, ⁓ could be like, what well, who am I doing this for? What am I doing this for? Is, you know, because I know women tend to just think it's their own body. We just like walk in thinking, yep, I'm probably the problem. That doesn't make it easier for us, I will say. I felt like this is what I was like, you know, some really chauvinistic people are still saying out there, like this is all we're good for is ⁓ you know, making babies having babies. But What if you can't even do that? You know, so I it's it is a hit. It is really it's very identity driven. ⁓ but for the guy, I I would love to say, like, are you do what do you what would you be checking this yourself out for? Is it so that you can have a family, start a family? Like, what's the worst that can happen? You find out and you fix it and your your partner gets pregnant sooner or you have the ability to have a an IBF get started or you don't have to keep on dealing with the up and ups and downs of your train wreck wife. I mean, the upsides are endless. I I'm still recovering, to be honest. you're all right. Let's get back into the story. So we go through IVF at that point, or I do, and we get ⁓ the eggs that we get a good amount of eggs and then they have to go through the testing and then by the end of it we find out that we have well they did the embryos, yeah. So they they got all the eggs and then created the embryos and then that's when it went through genetic testing. Correct. and so we had like two plus, which is that's a it's a dumb number 'cause the the mosaic it's Look up what a mosaic is. We don't have to go into that right now. but we had two really good, viable, genetically sound embryos. And they were both and they were all all the one all the embryos we had were males. I think they were like seven or eight, something awesome like that. ⁓ four regardless of four went to testing and they were all boys. So I was like, if we're having a kid, we're having a boy. Yeah. If not a couple. You're my boy, Blue. Which I was pretty stoked about. If we're gonna do this, then I was happy. Yes. You were very happy. and then we started the process of getting my body ready for a transfer. And during that time, we had to talk to your friend Patrick. We didn't have to. We decided to talk to him about the possibility of only having one child because they sort of say that for every child you need two embryos. And so you and I had to decide, we were given the opportunity from the doctor after this to either go back through the whole IVF like egg fable part and bank more embryos ⁓ to use later or go ahead and transfer. And we were we were pretty unanimous about saying let's go ahead and try, but we also had to decide Are we okay with having one kid? Because that's not how I know we already talked about how you didn't you thought it would be bonus to have a child at all. But we both grew up grew up in the South with two siblings. And I don't know about you, but I kind of envisioned naturally having more than one child because I was of more than one in my own household. Yeah, I mean I I think that was the the unstated idea that, you know, that all of our embryos would stick. You know, it's like this that's the optimistic part of you, is that okay, once you make it to that part, then okay, this is good. Like the odds are good. You know, back in the day, they would insert like eight eggs. Yeah. That's why you had like occ octama. Yeah. ⁓ literally, because they would shove as many eggs in there as they could and see if one would stick. And they didn't do all that testing. They weren't No, no, they weren't doing genetic testing at that time. So now you have a much cleaner product, so to speak, and you have a much greater, much better idea as to the potential success based upon the quality of the embryo. Right. So they put one in at a time now, at least at our clinic. And I've heard, 'cause I had Molly on, she said she wanted two she had she had a lot of embryos. I think nine they ended up with or something. And so the her first transfer did not work. So the second time she like really wanted more than one to go in. ⁓ and it did work. Still one child, but ⁓ at least the suggestion at our clinic is now one. and that's what we did. So our first one was in June of twenty twenty three. And we went down to Denver. We were both I felt I felt confident. I wasn't like a hundred percent confident, but I felt pretty confident that Yeah. They had figured out my body that they kind of cracked the code because of how well the aggregable had gone. And and then we went back to Aspen. We had that nine day wait. My parents were with us. I talk about this with mom on the podcast, how maybe we should not have all been there waiting to hear she addressed that and apologize to you basically. ⁓ apologize to me. Yeah. and So we're all waiting for good news because I feel pregnant. ⁓ and then we get the phone call and I'm not I'm not pregnant at all. Do you remember that? That's a part that's not blacked out. Yeah. That was ⁓ too vivid, too that was one of the most emotionally scarring moments of the entire time. Yeah. On so many levels. Yeah. ⁓ Mom was howling. And that That's an understatement. Yes. She was hysterical. And she kept trying to put you on the phone with your sister and you're you're like I was and I'm like, No. Yeah. Like let this let us have the dust settle and just try to absorb what just happened. I wasn't shocked. Meanwhile, hyster h hysterics were going on. Yeah. You and I are in shock and I'm just I'm sitting there thinking, Well, shit. Now what do we do? And I'm thinking about you of like. How is she gonna be with this? Obviously devastated initially, but what does this look like in the next few weeks? What does this look like for our marriage? Like I mean, all the things of that are just realistic. And ⁓ because it was it was already stressful enough. ⁓ and now we only have one left. Yeah, and I I I had this conversation with your dad more than once. but I said, I completely understand how marriages fall apart from this kind of stuff or and and how affairs happen and everything else. And it's not not it's not condoning any of that, but it's like it's not even that you're you're just trying to find something positive somewhere. You know, some people find it in recreational drugs, some people find it in outdoor activities, just anything that's a distraction. From what you're currently faced with on a day to day basis. And that that day to day basis for us at that time was just constant disappointment. Yeah. And and so, ⁓ I totally see and do not fault anyone whose marriages disintegrate because of IVF. I mean, I would not wish IVF on my worst enemy. I'm I'm grateful for it, obviously, but it is one hell of a journey that no one can prepare you for no one can give you any kind of words or anything to even help you walk through it. Like you have to have people to walk alongside you, but there's there's nothing that can prepare you for it. And so ⁓ yeah, I ⁓ it it it's it's a miserable experience to be honest. ⁓ but the outcome's great. But yeah, it in the moment it's like I it doesn't always end up that way. Well exactly well, exactly. And like I said, I'm very grateful for our ending with it all. Yeah. With Archer. ⁓ But yeah, the process itself sucks. It does. It does. And ⁓ the hard part is that there's no guarantee. There's never a guarantee. They can't tell you I think a a misconception of the whole IVF process is that they like take over your body and make it happen. You know, and they do hijack your body or my b you know, the woman's body. And they do do a lot of things in that vein. They're trying to do that. They're trying to make it happen. They're trying to set say, you know, like make the the area for the embryo be as hospitable as possible and everything. But ⁓ they ca it's like magic, but it's not guaranteed magic. And that is the stress the whole time because you don't know which camp you're gonna fall into. during this part of the process and then maybe the next part of the process. And so we walked into that second transfer with a lot more trepidation. I know I did. now I I'm afraid to move. I don't want to believe anything I feel. And you know I'm very in tune with how I feel on a daily basis. Like there's something off. I know it. But I didn't want to look into it or lean into it or anything that second time. I was just afraid. I was afraid that my that meant, you know, in you talked about this earlier. I was afraid it meant my body could not get pregnant because we had produced the eggs. We had got you know the sperm was re retrieved and and the embryos were made. And then what if they just keep s not sticking to me? And I felt like this was where I was going to be failing you. This is where I thought, what is wrong with me if I can't do this? Am I ever going to be able to get pregnant? And You know, and each time you lose an embryo, that is a miscarriage. So losing one and then trying to do it right away, I don't know if I would tell somebody to stay in it. We we took a a month break or so, a cycle break because they were doing some blood tests on me to see if there's a clotting issue or something of that nature. But I mean I wanted to keep going. I remember that. I don't know how you felt about it. ⁓ I don't but I wanted to keep going. Yeah, again, I c it it's all a blur to be honest in a in a lot of those ways, but I remember when we did decide to do another one, by the stroke of luck, grace of God, they the blood tests. ⁓ accidental. They did. Yep. So I can let me let me go back to that. The day of the retrieval I mean not the retrieval, the transfer. At least at our clinic, and I've heard this doesn't happen every clinic anyway. So I suggest you ask for it just just based on ⁓ experience. Get a full panel of a hormone. Yeah. The day you go in, get a full panel of your hormone so that they can check it to see if anything is off the day that they put the embryo in to the uterus. And then so the first time there was no issue. ⁓ at least nothing came back on my day of. They didn't test for it. No, no, no. They didn't test Yes. Nothing came back the day of the transfer. It was all fine. And so the second time though, my estrogen was a little low and they wanted to up it. So we went while we were still in Denver ⁓ to go get a little bit more estrogen to take. And then they said, back in aspen, here is your blood ⁓ test order, give it to your lab. And in two days from now, you need to get tested again for the estrogen alone. And because our lab is small and they knew me, I had already sent them the one that they were gonna be testing for for all of it, like to see if I was pregnant nine days later. I just sent them everything all at once. They accidentally ran that full panel versus just the estrogen one that was was ordered. And that's when we discovered that my progesterone had plummeted. And so they were able to catch that because of that and put me on more progesterone. Which is the sticky part. That's the stuff you need the most during this part of the the transfer. And that's the part that we did not have the first go around. Correct. We did not have the accidental testing. ⁓ to know that's probably what happened the first go around too. I it's it's so likely. And what's insane to me, you spend so much time and money and everything to get up to this point. Why wouldn't you test for Everything. Why wouldn't you test yeah midway through a nine day wait? Like just just naturally. No. So the fact that it was caught was like all of a sudden I just had a thought of like, okay, maybe that's what it was, you know, the first go around and let's see what happens in another week, you know? Yeah. Like Well if nothing else, they caught it. We continued on for the rest of the nine day wait, which was excruciating. I turned thirty eight during that time. You gave me already you had already quit. I had. Yeah. You had already quit. You had already like put up the white flag. ⁓ Yep. Thanks to this envision your music is real. Yeah. ⁓ gosh. I'm having to get get past this back to where I was my thoughts going. ⁓ you'd already give you had already given up. And so the day that they were gonna call, I took off of work because I just had no clue what was gonna happen and should it be bad news, I didn't want you at the house by yourself. 'Cause this time mom and dad were not with us. They had to go home early and I think they did that on purpose. Yeah. Yeah, they did. ⁓ But like you were hauled up ⁓ in the bedroom watching Harry Potter or something, shades pulled. It's like nine thirty in the morning, ten o'clock in the morning, and y we'd already gone for a walk. ⁓ I'd already done blood tests. We went for a walk. I tried to crochet, didn't work, nothing. You you were already just like, I'm just accepting the fact that I'm not pregnant, all this kind of stuff. I'm like, we don't know yet. Like, you know, like anyway. I felt like it was just easier To li live on that because the other time this was a constant thing with you. This was constant with you, always of like, no no, like trying to be the optimistic positive one. And you're like, Yeah, but and I'm like, why do you have to be yeah, but and I would constantly say glass half full, not glass half empty. I know. And anyway. I gave you my phone. You wanted I don't want to be You wanted me to take the call. And ⁓ so I was in the guest bedroom closet trying to pull out some bike stuff or something. I can't remember exactly. But I just remember they called and I was just like And you had the ringer on really low, right? 'Cause I didn't I never heard it. Yeah, I I turned it down 'cause I didn't want you to hear it and like freak out or whatever. I wanted to be able to like process the information, whatever it is, and then tell you in my own way. ⁓ but they called and they're like, Hey, is Ashlyn available? And I said, ⁓ just tell me. I was like What's I said, what's the number? Because it's the number that you want to have, right? It's like greater than five. C G. H S G. Yep. H C G. Yeah. C G C G. Mm hmm. And ⁓ Yeah, it's like it wants to be greater than five. And I can't remember if it was thirty five. S I think it was seventy five or something. It was high. It was high. It was very high. which meant without question you were pregnant. At least for the moment. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, it it stuck. ⁓ and so that's what I want to know first, was just the number. Like I w I she didn't I didn't even let her tell me anything else. I What's the number? Immediately. And so she told me. And then I went and d burst in entire bedroom and you just kinda looked at me with like, This are we gonna have some really terrible news or something? And I go, I'm gonna be a father. That was great. That was the greatest way to find out. That was great. It's like I'm gonna be a dad. Yeah. Yeah. I can't imagine. And then you put me on the on the phone with ⁓ the nurse and she confirmed and ⁓ but I that day You were shocking. Yeah. ⁓ yeah. I was also in shock because that it had worked because that was like my entire life put into one moment of you could do this, you know. And between for those who don't know I had gotten divorced at 30 and met Marcus. We got married at when I was 33, he was 35. And I for the longest time before I met Marcus, I wondered if I'm ever going to find myself in the situation where I could bec want to be a mom of someone else's child. Like, am I gonna find a partner? And I did. And then I ⁓ you know, then we had to go through fertility issues and it was just like, why, why is this so hard? Why is everything just so hard? And then that moment happened with you. Yeah. And now we have a two year old who is just He's nuts. Yes. He's nuts in all the best ways. And ⁓ man, I'm gonna throw up some pictures of my pregnancy that you ⁓ we were looking at them yesterday. I'm gonna throw up some put the Yeah, put up the one you next to Thor. Yeah. You're loving You're so lovingly like you need a guy who's gonna say, Yeah, you look like fat Thor. Go stand next to him. Let me take a picture. You took a lot of unflattering photos during my pregnancy. ⁓ Get your fun where you can't. Mm-hmm. Yep. Yep. The the pregnancy was was, for all intents and purposes, the easiest part of the process. ⁓ after going through the IBF. I mean, it was no picnic, but it was a lot easier. I feel like the g the the nine months ⁓ were basically they were doable. I was nervous a lot still every time we went to the the next ⁓ You know, and something they that I don't think w is talked about enough is that after you do get a pregnancy test come back, your H C G levels have to keep on rising, you know, for it to like it's so it's stuck, but it's gotta keep sticking. And it ⁓ and so then at least when with IBF you know exactly what day you are of your pregnancy because they have you on the clock and they know it was day five of this or day t whatever. And so you're able to know your exact ⁓ due date from there. It's not a question of when the conception happened. And so we would we went to ⁓ the ultrasounds together every single time, I think, maybe one time you weren't able to go. But it was like besides the fact like feeling pregnant was the fine part, but I was nervous like because we had already gone through one loss. You know, you don't want to be too Well, but I kept trying to tell you we'd already done genetic testing, so the chances of having an anomaly or anything else were way, way lower simply because of what we'd already done. I kept trying to remind you of that. You did. But I'm not the easiest to remind about good news, as we've discussed. No shit. So I mean, it w once we got past the twenty, I felt really good. But I yeah, it was it You're not off the hook emotionally, at least if especially if you had any hiccups in your IVF journey, you're not totally off the hook to fear for a while. And I talk to a lot of women about this like literally while they're pregnant, because they reach out and say, like, what did you feel during this time? Or ⁓ when can I breathe? Easy. And you just want to know, like, when are you when are you good? And the problem is you can't know until you get past that next appointment or the next appointment or to the birth even. ⁓ and that's hard to say because you wanna like make it better for somebody. You want it to be like, you're good now, you're good. But the chan the the chances might be low, but they still exist. And because if you've already gone through something that was like the chances were worked out for somebody else, didn't work out for you, it's easier to fall on the side of the other shoe's gonna drop. the other shoe's gonna drop. And ⁓ I don't know if there's a way to get beyond that while you're in it. I think there's some something about just like slogging through that. And like you said, having a partner, having somebody to talk to about it. ⁓ and it just sucks. It just does. Because I don't know if I could have talked myself out of that. Like that's just not really who I am. ⁓ good on you for trying. But We see these wrinkles? Yeah. That's thanks for that. ⁓ I do my best. Okay, so we got married in twenty nineteen. We finally have a kid in May, same month as our marriage, ⁓ in May of twenty twenty four. We go to I've not really talked about my birth story very much, or his birth story rather. You weren't mentally Yeah. Well maybe you can sh hi Timber. Maybe ⁓ for those who aren't watching, our Australian Shepherd just jumped onto the ⁓ dental chair and looking out the window. ⁓ why don't you talk about the whole birth story? I was gonna be induced, and so we went in there on a Monday afternoon, ⁓ in April, April twenty ninth, I think. And we didn't get out of there until May 4th. So a lot happened. Can't share since I wasn't really with it? Yeah, well I mean try to induce. You were in labor for like what, thirty six hours? ⁓ Archer wouldn't fit through your pelvis, ⁓ which Also another thing of like just do the C section. Like I you know, why do we have to wait that long and then ⁓ let's just let's just pull him out. It's like well we could have done that 36 hours ago. Anyway, ⁓ so that made it extremely long and tiresome for you. ⁓ so now I'm having to get a C section. The morning of May May one, we go in, ⁓ the William to the C section. ⁓ and at that point I was like, ⁓ now it's getting real. Because we just kept waiting for this baby to come out and I was like, Okay, like I know it's gonna happen, but like, yeah, not really. You know what I mean? You and so when we were I just remember feeling numb walking into the OR, ⁓ trepidation of just Our world's about to change. Like, you know, there's gonna be a tiny human that's yanked out of you, and ⁓ and it all happens so fast. And you weren't you grew up for for reference, you grew up in an OR with your dad. So the OR itself was not making you nervous. It was what you were there. Not in the slightest. If anything, I felt more comfortable being in there because I spent so much time with my dad. Like literally, like it's It's little home. And I anyway, that's beside the point. But ⁓ we were in there, they got you ⁓ numbed up, and then they wound up having to sedate you. ⁓ probably for a myriad of reasons, and maybe for me, I don't know. Well, I started to feel like I was gonna pass out, and that made me worried that like, what if this is bad? What if, you know, because no one said like you're gonna feel ri this or whatever. Like it was more of their just They're op you know, getting me all ready. It's not an emergency like an emergency emergency, but it's like there's a lot of hustling going on in the room to get everything ready to go. And in the process, I'm starting to feel like I'm fainting. And it freaked me out because I thought I've seen all these photos of people sitting there, you know, with their baby or whatever, and they don't they don't weren't passed out, I didn't think, and then I thought something's wrong, something's wrong. And I was just ex exhausted too. Yeah, so anyway, they gave you a bunch of verse ed. ⁓ you were you don't even remember that. No. Time really. No. ⁓ anyway, pull him out and then I get photos of him. ⁓ umbilical cords still attached and everything, like fresh. Fresh. Super fresh. And and that kid's got some pipes. To this day, he's got some pipes. He may not look like me, but he can Use his voice. A Aiken Belt. ⁓ Yeah. And then he was super red, which was awesome 'cause it a lot of oxygen. Like I I was just doing all these mental assessments of just seeing him immediately, of like, all right, he's not he's not gray. Like all these things. Like, no, he's bright red in a great way. ⁓ and screaming at the top of his lungs. ⁓ and I and I thought to myself, man, what a what a crazy traumatic experience for a baby to go from like being warm and like jammed in this little cocoon to like a cold OR. Yeah. Limbs are flailing and like you can all of a sudden use your voice for the first time. Yeah. ⁓ but anyway, they put him under the the warming lamps, getting him cleaned up. And I remember going over there and just like touching him and just There's n there's no words. I mean it's Yeah. Yeah. You were like, ⁓ shit. Yeah. Like we can't put we can't put him back in. like this is now part of our our lives, you know, forever of taking care another responsibility, ⁓ but a beautiful one. But i I was just like, I am I ready for this? You know, like it's the whole thing, ⁓ all the motions of just Someone who is fully dependent upon you now. Yeah. Fully dependent upon them. I mean, when when parents celebrate the kid's first birthday and they all get hammered, it's because they're just so they're just celebrating keeping the kid alive for a year. Like, congrats, everybody. We kept him alive. Yeah. And You ⁓ if I r I don't remember this. I I can't say if I I recall I recall you telling me you did the skin to skin the first time because I was out. Yeah. For w a long time, it feels like. ⁓ yeah, you were out for a long time. Yeah. but I just remember holding him and ⁓ yeah, just having that intimate, you know, time and contact with him and Yeah, it was a good day. Yeah. Very good day. May first, twenty twenty four. And we got to take him home on our anniversary. It was our fifth, I think, on May fourth. We demanded that we go home. Yes. ⁓ god, I had to get home. I hated being in the hospital anymore. I felt like I was going crazy. ⁓ but they wouldn't let me leave until I could do two laps around the ⁓ ward, the maternity ward and ⁓ Went to bathroom, which was Dolka Lax. Dolka Lax. No more collase. Yeah, you were you were constipated, but also you were weak. And then there was also the issue of just breast milk. Ugh, yeah. ⁓ he wa and he lost ten percent of his his ⁓ weight. ⁓ and they wanted to it seems like a ton, it's not, but I mean to them it is, but like when they're that small. They wanted him to get back up a little bit more. Early on, it's yeah. Ten percent for anybody is a lot to your weight. Yeah. So we went home. We became parents fully, ⁓ postpartum. ⁓ anything you want to add there? The crazy wasn't over. Crazy's never gonna be over. That's that's the thing. Like we're I mean, f we're gonna be talking for I don't know how long. Marcus. It it would run into my seeing patience here in a few. Yeah. Okay, so I it was har p postpartum is also something you need to be prepared for. If you're a woman, you're going to crash because your hormones are leaving your body in rapid succession after how many months of building them up? So it's natural, it's normal. That doesn't make it easy or fun or fun for your partner, but it is normal. So I despise when I hear that people think that like this is like everything's fine now. It's not. It's gonna be hard, it's gonna get better. You would you would be laughing and I would turn to pick something up and all of a sudden you're bawling. Yeah. Yep. And I'm like, did I just do something? Like what just happened? Probably not. And you're like, I'm I'm so happy. Like what? It's a weird way of expressing it. And then I had a fear of going to sleep. ⁓ not going to sleep, but I had a fear of nighttime because I it was such a lonely ⁓ it was a such a lonely time. It didn't matter who was with me. It was just it felt like endless hours of getting up and feeding and I was afraid he that I was gonna do something wrong because I was so tired and he would die or something like that. I kept checking his his ⁓ his breath to see if it was, you know, hitting you know, hitting my hand or whatever. And yeah, that was it was a I was neurotic during that time. ⁓ And also going, you know, going through the the the bod the natural order of your body just coming down off all the hormones and and for me healing from a s a major surgery. So I wanna give myself retroactive grace because I know I couldn't have done anything differently at the time. You're you're surviving while you're trying to, you know, make your child survive and it's just a slog. ⁓ another one just to get through. But we did and we are now I feel like we're in a pretty good rhythm. ⁓ we have a we have a very good sleeper, thank goodness. ⁓ a good eater. And he's fun. And it just gets more more fun as time goes on. Yeah. Yeah. Watching their personalities blossom or is Yeah. It's it's fun. It's exciting to see what he's gonna do, what he's gonna say, and he's a he's a he's a unique little guy. Yeah. ⁓ so that said, this whole IVF journey, this whole fertility journey that you and I went on together as partners, it was a lot. It was worth it. Thank you for going on it with me. I know we looked at him this morning and we were you you said, He's ours. And that is exactly the point of this whole thing. I wanted a kid with you. I wanted A mini Marcus and I got one. And so thank you for going through this with me. He is my clone. He is your clone. He is my clone. Yes. I think that was that was God saying, All right, like get on board here. ⁓ yeah. But thank you, babe. Really, really thank you for going through all of this with me. I could not have gone through it with anyone else. I would not have wanted to. And ⁓ and we have a kid to to show for our hard work. That we do. That we do. Well, thank you so much, babe, for coming on and talking about this. I know a lot of these things are hard for men to talk about. ⁓ Marcus is unique. I feel like ⁓ you know, having gone through it, he's he's on the other side of it. So he's able to field questions, ⁓ retro actively, you know, and think about things and what he would have done later. I mean, what h he wishes he would have done sooner. ⁓ I know he's pretty open about as he has been today on the podcast about h the journey he went through. But if you have questions, I'm gonna go ahead and ⁓ recommend you ask him because ⁓ I think ⁓ instead of asking me if you're a guy, ask the source because it it'll come out differently. I'll say it, I'll say it wrong or something. ⁓ but if you have questions for me, obviously you know how to reach me. All my information is in the show notes. I'll put Marcus's in there as well. ⁓ thank you so much to everyone for listening. Even if there's like one guy out there who learns something from this, who takes something from this, that's something. That can make a I feel like a big difference in someone's co equal journey through this process. ⁓ we don't talk enough about these kind of things. That's why this this show exists. And I hope we talk about more and I hope more ⁓ men will come to the table, ⁓ whether that's with their spouse or partner. what have you to talk about the stuff while it's happening. ⁓ even retroactively. I've said that word like a million times today, but even talking about it after the fact, I think is also very good to kind of unpack and go through it. So thank you for doing the post mortem, which that sounds terrible, ⁓ with me today on this. ⁓ you get back to your patients and everyone else. Yes. Have a great day. I know. I know. I'm sorry. Have a great day and take care. Until the next time we are here again.