How Your Dick Breaks Your Brain

A journey through the male side of infertility.

These things can always feel self-indulgent to write, so I won’t go super deep on all of it. While I think I did improve my “numbers” in the last few years, I have what some would call “significant male factor infertility.” Nice. Now, the good thing is: there’s increasing awareness that infertility “isn’t just a female thing” to the point that we have a new word for it all: Spermageddon. As such, I am not alone in all of this, although you can very often feel alone, as most guys don’t want to touch any conversation that questions virility with a 68-foot pole. It’s isolating.

I think, in my specific case, I came off a divorce in 2017 and was lucky enough to find love again. That’s good! I had always wanted to be a dad, or at least society brainwashed me enough into believing I wanted to be one, so I thought, “Oh, that’s a possible off-shoot of a new chance at a relationship too!” It was not, for the record, a primary reason.

With my ex, as that friend circle was more Northeast than Texas, people were having kids later in life. At the time I was exiting that world, there were some newborns and some pregnancies, but no adolescents or anything. Not even school-aged, really. Because I didn’t even get married the first time until 32–33, I hadn’t really had Baby on…