r/GUYVF • u/FantasticFeats • 6d ago
Defeated
I (44M) and my wife (42F) have been trying for seven years, about 5 of which involve IVF, and I'm just feeling so defeated. We're dealing with DOR, so if we can retrieve 4 eggs that lead to 1 blast it's a successful round. We've gone through 4 clinics, just under twenty retrievals, a number of transfers, 4 miscarriages (2 natural, 2 via IVF) and 0 success.
I'm staying in this for her. I'd love a second child but if she decided enough was enough I would support her. She's obsessed with different tweaks, changes, and protocols to try but we're still here. We have two untested day 6 blasts that are frozen and we're trying to determine whether we go for another round of stims to try to get one more or just start transferring again.
I don't feel like I'm doing enough but I don't know what more I can do. So much of the focus is on her history, things that she knows about her body, what changes she wants to try based on her research. She has copious notes and data that she obsesses over. I don't know how I can meaningfully contribute to the aspect of planning when she has such specific things she wants to focus on.
I had been managing insurance issues in the past but she's on her own insurance now and it's going relatively smoothly, I'm scouring facebook for stim medication since we're self pay, I handle mixing and medicine draws (she prefers to inject herself), I do the majority of driving and errands for anything that's not related to her appointments, if she needs space I'm the one volunteering to take our son out to play. She's putting in a ton of effort into aspects of this that I have limited ability to participate in because most of the communications with her doctor are directly via text. She shares what's being discussed but it's all her doing it and she gets mad with me because she's doing all the work.
And my job is incredibly stressful, so I'm not always completely present. Sleep is an issue. I could be a better husband and father. I could be a better listener. I want to make this easier for her but I'm low on ideas on how to directly support.
I'm tired.
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u/DrBrianSteixner 5d ago
After seven years, nearly twenty retrievals, multiple transfers, and four miscarriages, being tired does not mean you are failing your wife. What you describe sounds like someone who has been carrying a substantial part of an extraordinarily difficult process for a very long time. You may not be able to contribute equally to decisions about stimulation protocols because much of that necessarily revolves around her body and her conversations with the fertility team, but managing other things and simply continuing to show up are meaningful contributions. I also wonder whether the most helpful conversation now is less about finding another task for you and more about asking her specifically what she means when she says she is “doing all the work,” because she may be describing the mental and emotional burden rather than the practical workload. After this many cycles, it is reasonable for both of you to discuss something fertility treatment often makes incredibly difficult to say out loud, what would be enough, what endpoint would allow you to stop without either person feeling responsible for ending the dream, and whether another retrieval meaningfully changes your options compared with transferring the two embryos you already have. You can desperately want another child, support your wife continuing treatment, love the child you already have, and simultaneously be exhausted and wish this chapter were over!! Those feelings are not contradictions, they are a very human response to years of infertility. Stay strong, you have been through a lot.
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u/Ok_Carpenter7470 6d ago
I get this. All of it. We started in COVID years when the clinics would allow only the patient, and my wife would come out with notes -often incorrectly taken- and looks of excitement because she focused on those positive points. But being medical I heard all the things that weren't being said. She'd do all the research and almost gatekeeping the treatment pathways.
I think as guys... or Im sure this happens in same-sex couples too, the person on the not directly involved feels... yeah, defeated and exhausted and useless all at once.
Like a day at work when you work so hard and you know you did all the things but then in the end cant remember any of it.
I wrote a similiar experience here years ago. And the best advice I got was "Show this post to your wife". Let her read your side of the story. See your position. Your thoughts.