I bet THAT title grabbed your attention!
Now that I've hooked you in, it's time to talk about our consultation at University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics in Iowa City. And when I say "our" consultation, I really mean Brian's appointment because–of course–I am not allowed to go in with him because of the 'Vid.
It's Tuesday, June 23. We're ready to head out for our 12:30 appointment in Iowa City. Iowa City is about 1 hour and 45 minutes from our house, so we didn't need to leave til around 10:30 or so.
But FIRST, we had to stop at Starbucks and get some fuel for the road. Most of my besties don't live here in Iowa, so I haven't been able to physically BE with them during this tumultuous journey––but they make sure we never run out of Starbucks gift cards to get through these long days/months.
Side note: If you're looking for an easy way to let someone know you're thinking of them, I highly recommend electronic Starbucks gift cards. You can pick your card design and leave a personal note. Randomly receiving these from friends made me feel a little less alone.
If you know my husband and me, you know about our love of road trips. We're that couple that sings to every song at the top of our lungs every time we're in the truck together.
We even perform an incredible duet whenever Reba McEntire's and Linda Davis' song, "Does He Love You" comes on the radio. I'm sure you're probably dying to see this so I added a clip for you (don't worry, we won't be quitting our day jobs any time soon to go out on the road).
This time when we hopped into Brian's shiny, bright red Ford F-150 pickup, it was different.
No sing-a-longs, no care-free conversations. Just lots of quiet moments and hand holding.
We arrived in Iowa City, drove past Kinnick Stadium (where we got engaged) and pulled into the parking garage at the hospital. At this point, the venti iced blonde vanilla latte I drank on the way had gone straight through me and I really needed to use the restroom. Since I couldn't go in, I asked Brian to let me know if there is a restroom on his way to the COVID checkpoint where he had to get his temp taken and answer all the questions prior to entering. There were some tears before he left to go inside (from me) because I really wanted to be there with him. This was OUR journey and it was so unfair that he had to do this alone.
When Brian called to tell me there was not a restroom between the parking garage and his destination at the hospital, I had a freak-out moment. You might be saying, "Sweetie, why didn't you just drive to a gas station?"
Well, let me tell you why. There are not many things I hate on this earth, but I do hate driving in unfamiliar areas, making left turns and trying to maneuver Brian's big pick-up.
At this point, I was about ready to burst and Brian would be calling soon to put me on speaker phone for the appointment. So, as a true farm girl would, I grabbed my empty Starbucks cup, made sure there was no one around (there wasn't), and climbed in the backseat and filled that sucker up.
There, I said it. I peed in a Starbucks cup in the parking garage. This is what my life has come to. 🤷♀️
You can't say I didn't warn you–I told you at the beginning of all this that my blog would be real, raw and uncomfortable at times. 🤣
A couple minutes later, I got the call I'd been waiting for. Brian was in the exam room checking in for his appointment. Now, keep this in mind as you read–University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics is a teaching hospital.
Two females (a surgeon assistant and a student) who both sounded like they were not a day over the age of 21, told my husband to remove his shorts and lie on the table for his exam. They checked him out then asked him to stand up and face the surgeon assistant as she was sitting in the chair in front of him with the student in a chair behind him.
I heard Brian tell the student, "I wouldn't get too close to that thing back there, you never know what might come out of it."
Leave it to my husband to take an incredibly uncomfortable situation and infuse his humor to make it less awkward. I love this man.
After the exam (which Brian aced), the surgeon finally came in to discuss all the things. It was nice to finally hear an expert talk about what may be causing this and where we really do go from here. In true-Teri fashion, I had a list of questions written out and was frantically writing down everything Dr. Wald was saying.
What's the success rate of the surgery? Hard to know.
Give us a description of the surgery. Well, we will go in through his scrotum, slice his testicles in half, take pieces of tissue from his testicles, and then sew him back up.
Will you do both, or just one? If we don't find any viable sperm in the first, we will move on to the next.
What are the chances you'll find sperm? 63-65%
Does insurance cover this typically? No, and the surgery is thousands of dollars
Plus a bunch of other questions and answers and information. While at this appointment, we went ahead and scheduled the surgery for August 13. We could always cancel once we talked it over and made a decision.
The last thing Dr. Wald told us is that he would really like Brian to have some genetic testing completed to look for abnormalities in his chromosomes, which could be causing no sperm.
Great, more testing.
But, it's the right thing to do–as frustrated as I was regarding MORE tests, the surgery would be a waste if these tests DO show abnormalities. And Brian would get his testicles sliced open for no reason. UMMM, NO THANK YOU!!!
When Brian got back out to the pickup, the first thing he said to me was:
"Well, that's not how I expected my first threesome to go."
I burst out laughing–of course, he was talking about his exam with the two females and his wife on the phone.
There is never a dull moment around here.
What do we do next?
Call insurance to see if they cover the genetic testing ✅ (they do!)
Call our fertility clinic to schedule these tests ✅ (they could get him in 2 days later on June 25, which is great because it can take weeks for the results to come back)
I still hadn't had my bloodwork done yet, so I wanted to get mine scheduled before the surgery just in case there were some major red flags with my labs ✅ (scheduled for July 9)
In my next post, you'll hear about the results of our labs and if we decided to move forward with the surgery in August. Stay tuned!
Love being able to read the real moments along your journey ❤️Thank you for sharing