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Started the shots portion of IVF (in-vitro fertilization) on Friday. It’s now Monday. Not a huge amount of time, or sample size, but here’s what I can tell you so far. I’m the man, not the woman. One of the craziest things about infertility is that even if it’s male factor — it was moreso in my case, although admittedly science doesn’t understand (or care about) male factor as much — the female still has to receive the injections and go through the bulk of the process. Surprising that more feminists and gender activists don’t hold up that discussion, honestly. Anyway — here’s what I got.
(1) The first shot is surreal. It was kind of a tag-team effort although ultimately my wife did it. A lot of stuff floods into your brain emotionally as a dude on the first shot; or, at the very least, that happened to me. One thing that kept popping in my head was a dinner party thing I went to a few months ago. I met a guy, 39 (I am 41), who had tried for four years or so to have a kid. Now he has 1, with 1 on the way. He says to me, “The craziest thing is that as a dude, from about 12–13, people are telling you to either never have sex or only have safe sex, because the second you even think about sex, someone somewhere will get pregnant.” That is indeed how sex is often taught to boys. In fact, in sixth grade, when I was in puberty, I attended an all-boys school and we had a class that was very oddly…
