Two to Tango

Even though we know there's something definitely going on with me,  it takes two to tango and my doctor instructed us to set up a Semen Analysis for E. There is a male factor to infertility in 30% of cases, and another 30% where there is both a male and female factor. Our present insurance doesn't cover any aspect of infertility, so we had to go outside the system and visit a fertility clinic.

Find More Comics Here

While the staff at the clinic were very nice, I think it was definitely an unpleasant experience for both of us. Poor E had to become better acquainted with a cup than I'm sure he ever wanted to be, and I got to discuss out of pocket price scales for infertility treatment. I keep saying the word "Infertility" and expecting to become desensitized to the sting, but it still doesn't seem like I'm referring to myself. My family doesn't deal with "infertility", my mother had my sister and I at 34 and 38 without blinking, so what business do I have having problems at 26?

As it turns out, the clinic we chose for it's receptionist's kind phone voice, it's close location and low SA cost - only $125 instead of $225 like the bigger clinics, is not in our future insurance network. After a little prodding, they don't like giving out prices unless you're sitting in a closed appointment room, they told me that their IVF cycles are about $16,000 a pop with medication, while an IUI will only set you back about $1200. At this stage, they still don't know what's wrong with me or if E has something going on too, but my doctor seems to be hinting that we need to plan for trouble.

After a few minutes in the tidy but infertility filled waiting room, I also noticed that I felt a little bit out of place there.  All the other patients seemed to be business professionals with about 10-20 years on me and it really hit home again that most people don't have these issues at my age. E and I are still hoping to be younger parents, although that window is closing quickly, and I can't decide if it's a good thing that we're getting a jump on this problem early, or a bad thing that we're already here when we're both supposedly so young.

Our next step is basically to wait. Wait for the endocrinologist to get back to my Ob/Gyn about my screwed up hormones, wait for orders for more tests to be sent in, wait for the SA results to come in for E, and wait to find out why we can't seem to get pregnant.