Woman Leading the TTC Process?

[Anonymous]

I'm sure I'm not alone, and I'm totally just venting but DH is like an ostrich with his head in the sand when it comes to TTC. I make all of the appointments, schedule all of the testing, go to all of the consults alone, deal with the incredibly limited insurance we have, etc. It seems like I do enough having to get shots and poked and prodded, and he is great about all of it, but he just wants me to "take care of the procedural side" to get our IVF cycle set up by a certain date. WTH!?!?!

[Anonymous]

Yep. Yep yep ype. Totally how it is here too. I just got used to it and just let my DH focus on his work and I took care of everything.

[Anonymous]

I'm sorry, PP. Have you tried talking to your DH about what you'd like him to be involved in? Big difference if he's actively refusing to support you in particular appointments/times if you have requested it versus him just being clueless and removed. The burden does, unfortunately, fall on us women to do these annoying shots all the time. My husband stood by me sometimes when I did them, but I also had days when he was downstairs doing something else, traveling, or just not right there. He did not come to most of the monitoring appointments, but I didn't ask. He certainly came to retrieval and transfer and appointments following transfer. Maybe you can find ways for him to be involved. Explain that this isn't your ideal way of how you wanted to conceive a child, and you'd like to make it more about the two of you (like it would be if we didn't have to deal with stupid infertility) working together. Maybe you can have him waiting with a piece of ice before or after shots if you need that, or maybe you can identify a couple appointments that are more important/scary to you that you'd like him around for. Maybe he can be the one to grab the meds from the fridge for you (if they're there) or line up the vials, alcohol swabs, needles as you're prepping.

[Anonymous]

Hmmm ... I have pretty high expectations for my SO (e.g., we are equal partners in cooking, cleaning, trip planning, etc.) but in terms of setting up fertility things ... I actually have assumed that role without even questioning it.

We each have our own work based insurance plans so I can't expect him to handle insurance questions. And my cycle, not his, dictates when I have to go in (and when he has to be there to give a sample) so I can't expect him to plan that either. So, I kind of understand how your DH might see this EXCEPT for not coming to consults. That is something we always do together because those meeting are about US and our options for making OUR family.

[Anonymous]

You are not alone OP. My husband is a physician and works 12-14 hour days, so there is no way he can come to anything except that which he is absolutely needed for. For me, it was never a letdown/surprise only because I am accustomed to his schedule. But if it bothers you, I would find a good way to approach him about it.

[Anonymous]

Are there things you can find for him to do to be more involved? My spouse gets out of work earlier than I do, so I had him go to the pharmacy to pick up my meds. Can he make dinner or do the dishes on the nights you have to give yoursel injections, so you have one less thing to think about?

[Anonymous]

I think you will find a million women on this site who would agree with you, OP. When I started my first IVF process, I was LIVID because my husband wanted me to postpone our first IVF by a month because of a conference he would have to go to ON OUR DUE DATE (IF the timing had worked out). And he literally had NO idea why I was so upset/mad/frustrated/speechless. It was the most bizarre thing that had ever happened in our marriage to date.

We're more than a year down the road from there, and I have to give him a ton of credit - he's been as supportive as he possibly could have been. Do I feel like I have done 97% of the work - absolutely. Do I feel like I handle an uneven amount of the burden - absolutely. However, I think that's just part of being the woman in the IVF process.

I also think that once your husband sees you giving yourself shots every day, and how you have to limit your diet/schedule/workout routine/ENTIRE LIFE for this process, he may have a bit of a change of heart. I know my husband did - he never said it outright, but he became much more understanding when he saw what this entails from our side of the stirrups.

[Anonymous]

I have three shots a day right now and it takes me about 2-3 minutes each to do them all from start to finish (from opening vials to alcohol prep to reconstituting with a Q-Cap to shot administration to zipping up my pants and turning off the bathroom light if I'm moving slowly.) Infertility and IVF is an emotional, scary process but the individual mechanics of it aren't that big of a deal- come on! I do think the burden falls on the woman but such is life. In my household, the burden of plenty other things falls on my husband. I'm useless at most of the home improvements we're doing right now while he is a natural. He doesn't insist that I line up his nails for him before he hammers away or that I dip his paintbrushes in paint before he starts painting a wall. You can't split everything down the middle and you can't try to compensate by drumming up "jobs" for your husband to do. Don't be tit-for-tat - it will be a long, unhappy marriage if you are and I cannot imagine how miserable the newborn days will be for some of you guys with a bean-counting mentality. Just relax - it all works out. Don't force it and good luck.

[Anonymous]

I don't think it's a bean-counting mentality. I feel less stressed by the process if not everything is my responsibility. It's not practical for DH to attend all monitoring appointments or even to be there for all shots, but I asked him to be responsible for all billing issues. At first he was a little reluctant because it would be easier in many cases for me to just deal with them when I go in for monitoring etc. But he came to realize it's about alleviating my feeling of responsibility for doing it. It makes me feel so much lighter to know that I can just refer them to my husband than deal with the ins and outs of the bills and mistakes etc.

[jindc]

My husband talks about how excited he is to become an uncle, while I research and try to bite my to the that his 'male issues' are why we need IVF. It is insanely insensitive and when I bring it up, he says stuff li,e why are you so worried it won't work. Besides that I don't like his sister, who he to.d we are doing ivf ("she's a doctor!" but her response to the info was, 'who will give her the shots'), I find it a little rough that he seems to be more excited about his siter giving birth to a kid he'll likely see once a year than he is about 1) trying to TTC naturally still before we start ivf or 2) learning about ivf - we have friends that went through it, and the guy would talk to my husband about what to expect, and he knows more that a first year attending ER doc.....
Sigh
I vent because many men really don't seem to get how taxing this is -emotionally, physically, (and mine financially - he assumes it'll work, who it won't be too expensive). I don't think there really is a way for them to know, so I have sort of given up. He shows up to appointments when I tell him to. As long as they aren't intentionally making I worse, what can ya do?

[Anonymous]

We're four years TTC and we went through this in the beginning. For my first pregnancy (loss at 11 wks) DH never came to appointments and he acted like I was a major downer for being tired all the time. He would get mad because he was "stuck" in the house with me on the couch. Then when we lost the first baby and two more after that, and I was fat and exhausted and just feeling literally scraped out in every possible way, he would get angry that I wasn't just bouncing back and wanting to party.

We went to therapy and DH admitted to the therapist (a man) that since I'm a woman, this is just my lot in life and he could not understand what all the fuss was about. The therapist looked straight a him and told him that was a sexist statement and if he didn't straighten up, he was going to lose his wife. I'm not sure if therapists are supposed to do stuff like that but it worked and I'm ever so grateful. DH has been an angel ever since. He goes to appointments with me (even monitoring), he gives me my shots, and he does all the paperwork. Our deal is that I'm doing the parts that only I can do, and he does everything else. It sort of works out that I do most of the communication with the nurses so I am doing a lot of the appointment setting, but he is there for all of it. He even gets upset now if I don't include him on something.

Anyway, I highly recommend talking these things out with a qualified infertility therapist. TTC can be a long haul and it's definitely better to not let stuff like this fester.

[Anonymous]

Hmmm I think we need a therapist. First failed ivf yesterday and my husband gave me 5 minutes to be upset and then spent hours angry bc ipad broke. Who did you see pp?

[Anonymous]

PP here. We saw someone in California (where we were living at the time). Our doctors at GW gave us a list at our first consult with them though. Your RE should be able to point you to someone in the area.

[Anonymous]

Good call on the therapist OP. I would also question how involved he would be as a parent. Seriously it only gets harder once the baby arrives and he won't watch the baby so you can (excercise, take a shower, sleep, etc, etc). Most men seem like they will be great fathers at the expense of being horrible partners. Having BTDT it sucks and it would have been good to nip it in the bud.