Whoa...I'm a Grown Up.

Do you have those moments where it hits you, that you're a grown up? I know, I know. Only children use the term "grown ups" but whatever.  Whoa....I'm a grown up.  I have these moments pretty frequently. I can drive, I have my own house and I love to grocery shop.  I haven't lived with my mom and dad in over seven years and I still trip out when I realize that I no longer need their permission for anything. Being a grown up isn't always fun though. Bills, sending your husband to war, your dogs being bitchy and fighting in your backyard (this happened to me today) and of course, the struggle of infertility.

Today I talked to my brother. I'm the baby of five and my brother is 11 years older than me.  He married my SIL two summers ago after they reunited on myspace 20 years after high school. She has two kids from her first marriage and for the past fifteen months they have been trying to have a baby of their own. He recently received the primary diagnosis of azoospermia or zero sperm. Either his body is not producing any sperm at all or he is producing and it's not going where it needs to go. If he is producing sperm then they could potentially conceive with IVF and a testicular biopsy to retrieve the sperm. He doesn't know what to do. SIL already has kids from her first marriage but my brother has none. Do they want to go through the expense of IVF? Their insurance covers absolutely nothing infertility related and one cycle will run them about $20k.  If they don't do IVF, will they regret it?  My brother talked about being on his death bed and all alone because he had no kids to surround him. What a sad thought.

I told him that he can't put a price on fatherhood. That he needed to compartmentalize the financial aspect of it and think about everything else first. Does it suck? Yes. Is it unfair? Hell yes. I told him that they've been trying for the past year to have a baby so what's changed? Has his desire to be a father been lessened? I know it hasn't.

I told him what I thought. The words came so easily. In that moment, my grown up moment, he was not just my big brother,  my elder,  a semi-foreign person that I've looked up to all my life. He was an equal, a person new to the world of infertility, a person struggling with the emotions of infertility. This grown up thing kind of sucks sometimes, you know?

I know it is ultimately his decision whether to pursue IVF and it is a LOT to process. As odd as this sounds, I hope that they do get a chance to agonize over this decision. As hard as it is to make a decision like this, I could only imagine that it would be even harder to hear the news that you will never be able to have a biological baby.While it's nice to have someone in my family who can relate to my struggles I really do not wish infertility on anyone, especially my family.

Six months ago my brother told me that I was oversharing when it came to my infertility journey and that some things should be kept private.  After all, what big brother wants to picture his baby sister with her feet in stirrups, right? But things are different now. Testicular biopsies, semen analyses, IUI, cervixes, sex. I talked to my brother about all these things today.  Whoa....I'm a grown up.