Fertility Playbook
One of the redeeming qualities I had as a football player was my ability to remember the playbook. I was not a very gifted athlete. I had to work for everything I was able to do on the field and I mean work hard. One thing that came easy to me was remembering my playbook and reading the defense. The playbook was a comfort to me. Since I was not the most gifted athletically, I had to be able to outthink the competition. If I knew where I had to be and knew where the guy I had to block was going to be, I could get there a split second before him and make my blocks, or at least get in the way long enough for the ball carrier to get past us. In my current occupation as a plant operator, we don’t have playbooks, but we have hundreds of written procedures for various jobs we will have to do. As a panel board operator, I have a procedure that lists what we call “consequences of deviations”. Basically, it tells me what the possible causes of the problems I am experiencing, and the most valuable part of that document is that it lists ways to correct those problems. See, I am a planner. I value having data available to help me strategize my next moves and responses.
The thing that troubles me most with our infertility journey is there is no procedure on how to deal with floods of emotions. There is no playbook on what the right and wrong thing is to say to my wife. Kaley is certainly not my opponent, but if she was the proverbial “defense” then it is impossible to “read the defense”. The drugs make her emotions very unpredictable and as I found out last week, there is definitely a wrong thing to say to your wife who is undergoing fertility treatments. Nobody warned me not to tell her that she needed to relax and not stress out so much. The sentiment was correct, she does need to try and find a way to destress, but in the midst of an emotional peak, telling her to relax was not only the wrong words, but utterly impossible. So, I caught a bit of wrath and while I did manage to find redemption, it is not advice that I will give again. That is the thing, this does not come with any consequences of deviation. I think the best advice came from Otis Redding. He said “when she gets weary…. Try, try, try a little tenderness.” I wonder is he wrote that song during a round of fertility treatments.
Fast forward to this week. If I had a playbook, I would have known that it is ok for me to express my emotions in healthy proper channels. But, void of a playbook, I stuffed all the anger, frustration, stress, grief, sadness, jealousy, and just overwhelming negativity into a little ball. I did not want to burden Kaley with it, and I certainly did not want anyone to know that I was not in total control. Then my rear end suspension on my car went out. That was it!!! I could not keep it inside. I exploded into a fit of rage. After throwing a proper 36-year-old temper tantrum complete with punching and cracking a door frame and trying to destroy the fridge, I cooled down when I realized Kaley was avoiding me. In all my infinite wisdom, all I did was make Kaley fear me. I realized that my inability to express myself was doing much more harm then good. So, after some soul searching, and remembering I had an aftermarket warranty to cover my car, we now do “feeling checks” and, truth is, we both need them.
If you read Kaley’s blog, you know where we are at. IUI #3 is next and then we wait and see. In the meantime, I guess I will keep on trying to make this playbook so that maybe one day a husband who comes after me will have some guidelines to live by. Maybe there is one out there, but I doubt it. It seems to me this journey, while shared by so many, is utterly unique to everyone. I pray that this time will be our time, and if not like I told Kaley in the last video. We push on. TOGETHER!
Peace & Love,
Kirk
