Borderline - what does that even mean?

We got the semen analysis results back.

Borderline.

We haven't met with a doctor. Why? I don't know- I don't think insurance will cover it, and I am too burnt out to find out. (Scroll to bottom to see results)

This test was a reminder for me that test results don't give you answers. They give you, at best, information. But not answers.(Typing that just made me well up with tears- I guess this topic was a bit more raw that I realized).

Relief
Indifference
Grief
Exhaustion
Anger
Finger-pointing
Peace
Guilt

This is the range of emotions I have felt this week since getting the results back. The results can't tell me if I am ever going to be a mother. The test results don't tell me if his sperm are the reason for the two miscarriages. The results certainly can't give me assurance that there aren't also OTHER reasons. This piece of paper can't tell me with certainty that I have options that I can afford. They can't tell me when this dark cloud of grief will lift enough that I can start to hope again. And it surely can't tell me what the "right" next step is for me, for us.


My period came last week. I am grateful that it was on time- for some reason I find comfort in that. But it also brought a new wave of grief. And I thought that when the hormones rebalanced, the grief would subsidy. But it hasn't- my period is no longer to blame, and I am really really struggling under this dark cloud. I have ZERO interest in anything related to become a mother. And feeling that way just adds even more grief. Have I really become so calloused that I can't even yearn for being a mother anymore? I keep telling myself it will lift, that I will be able to hope again, but it sure doesn't feel like that will come true. I just feel done. D-O-N-E.

**********

My step daughter spent the past 6 days with us. She lives out of state with her mom. She goes to college in another state. She is on summer break and came to visit us. I am not sure why i am bloggin about this- but i feel like it is part of my grief. I love her- I surprise myself sometimes at how much I love her. I didn't raise her- I have only been in her life for a very small part of it. But something stirs inside me that isn't of my own doing. And yet her visit was hard. She has pulled away. I am not sure if it is because of her age, her new freedoms as a college student- or if it because I am and always will be her "step" mom. Or maybe its the friction created from the divorce that chip away at her innocence. I think her visit, and this growing tension in the relationship stirred up in my some of this grief. It was a reminder that a) I am not her mother, and as much as I seek to be a nurturing, mentoring adult in her life- she will always make sure to keep me in my place- I am not her mother, I am nobody's mother. and b) parenting is f$@%cking hard. I watch as she and her dad, my DH, dance around the wounds left from the divorce. She was young- only a baby, when the divorce happened, but the wound has not healed, and for some reason I feel like it has been re- opened in the past couple of years. Grief, what if's, Anger and blame have become silent forces in the dance of this relationship. And my heart breaks as I watch my husband slowly lose the one thing he wants so much- his baby girl. And there is nothing he can do, or that I can do to stop it. The past is the past- she can choose to resent him for living 2hrs by plane away from his kids. she can choose to resent him for not being wealthy like her mom's side of the family. she can choose to resent him for being human. And all we can do is hope that some day, she comes around.

I told my mom a little bit about how I was feeling from this last visit of hers- and I said "ya know mom, it is a struggle to get pregnant, a struggle to stay pregnant, a struggle to raise them- and it hurts SO much- sometimes I wonder if the pain is more than I can take. do I really want this?"

That is where I am at today.......

************
Semen test results 5/8/09
volume 3.8 ml (Normal: 1.5-4.5)
concentration 60 million/ml (normal: 20-150 million/Ml)
motility 44% (normal: > 50%)
Progression 2.0 (Normal: 3-4)
Viability 53% (Normal 60-95%)
Morphology 5% (Normal <10%; Sub optimal 5-9%, Abnormal <4)