Over the next four months, the same thing happened six or seven times. I used to worry about him when he went out for a run, making him tell me his exact route and how long he would be. Dom made light of it—he put it down to getting older and not being as fit as he used to be. He thought it only happened on runs when he pushed himself too hard.
I was more concerned than he was and made him go to see a cardiologist. He had to run on a treadmill with little things dotted around his chest. He was made to run faster and faster to try to trigger one of his vomiting episodes. You wouldn’t bloody believe it—in front of the cardiologist, everything was fine!
That was as far as we got with testing to see what was causing the problem. There was something wrong but it would have to remain a mystery for now. And, anyway, since it only happened when he was out running the solution seemed obvious—stop exercising! (But that wasn’t happening!)
Race day arrived and Dom was pleased to make it to the start line after all the hard work. The starting gun went off for the 6 a.m. start. Just ten minutes into it, Dom started to feel one his episodes brewing. When running marathons, everybody expects to be uncomfortable by the 40-kilometre mark, but at only 2 kilometres into it most people haven’t even gotten into their stride. With 40 kilometres to go, Dom knew he was in trouble.
At 3 kilometres he was reduced to a walk. Fortunately for us, he saw a St John’s ambulance at the first drinks station and he introduced himself to the officer and explained what had been going on. The ambulance officer checked Dom’s blood pressure while he drank a couple of cups of Powerade.
The guy read the gauge, pumped the thing up again to check the reading then mumbled something under his breath. It sounded like, ‘That doesn’t seem right.’ He got his supervisor to come and check it.
By then Dom was starting to feel okay again and was feeling ready to re-enter the race—he was still hoping for a reasonable time. The supervisor confirmed the first guy’s results. At that stage, Dom knew nothing about blood pressure monitoring so the numbers they rattled off didn’t mean anything to him.
We learned later that 120/80 is normal, and the ambulance crew had recorded Dom’s at 290 over something. (They said 290 mm Hg systolic, but I had no idea what that meant.) We were told an unfit person would not have survived. The only reason Dom probably did was because he was so fit.
Suddenly, Dom had become an emergency, which he found a tad embarrassing. Made to lie down in the back of the ambulance, in his tiny running shorts and singlet, with sirens blaring and an oxygen mask over his mouth and nose, the whole thing seemed comical to him because, by then, he felt fine.
He was rushed to North Shore Hospital and after a series of tests it was decided that he had probably had a heart attack or a stroke. The doctors wanted to keep him in hospital to run some tests to try to find out what had happened and why. Dom was, at that stage, way more blasé about this than he probably should have been.
After two weeks of full-time testing—MRI and ultrasound scans and numerous other tests—the doctors had found the cause of all the drama. Dom was diagnosed with noradrenaline-secreting paraganglioma.
It was a tumour in his abdomen, a big bitch, about the size of a coconut! Fortunately, it was successfully removed in a seven-hour operation. It was tangled in between his aorta arteries, so the surgical team had their work cut out removing the tumour without damaging his aorta. If they had damaged Dom’s aorta, he could have bled to death or had a massive stroke on the operating table. It was pretty serious.
Post-op, Dom had a couple of days in bed and felt getting the old catheter out was a happy milestone for him—those things really are unpleasant. When the surgeon came in to see him on Day Two, Dom’s mother and I were visiting and the surgeon awkwardly asked us to leave so he could have a private word with Dom. Outside, our minds were racing as they talked—what could be so wrong that the surgeon couldn’t talk about it in front of us?
IN HIS OWN WORDS—DOM’S MEDICAL EMERGENCY
I have to admit, in hindsight, I am a bloody idiot for not listening more carefully to the warning signs my body was giving me as I trained for the marathon. Alarm bells were ringing at full volume and I ignored them, learning to live with the noise.
As soon as Jay-Jay and Mum had gone, the surgeon told me that as a result of the surgery and the tricky placement of the tumour, I may have something known as retrograde ejaculate. He said this means everything works exactly the same as always, but when you have an orgasm nothing comes out. The sperm comes out later, hitching a ride with the next departing stream of urine.
Apparently, it’s pretty common in older men who have had heart surgery, but they have usually fathered any children they want so it is no big deal. The surgeon went on to explain that Jay-Jay and I would need in vitro fertilisation (IVF) to have a baby. He said it is incredibly straightforward and easy these days. That’s it. I was released from hospital and went home to get better.
After Dom’s near-death experience, I was relieved to have him back home. When he went back to work the 13-centimetre-long scar that runs the length of his abdomen proved to be a big hit at show-and-tell time in the office—attention seeker that he is!
Dom got back to running and, no surprises, he got faster and faster and could run further and further without any trouble.
Once things got back to something we call normal, we began to think about what the surgeon had told Dom. We set about finding out what retrograde ejaculate really meant for us, and also how we could get the fertility treatment he had been told we’d need.
Facing infertility
We made an appointment with FertilityPLUS at Greenlane Hospital to discuss our fertility options. It was here that the doctors confirmed we would need to have IVF to have a child.
I don’t really know what I expected but, given the way Mum and my sisters had had so many babies without really trying, I absolutely did not expect to be told I would need to have IVF in order to conceive. I had never heard much about IVF before this and I didn’t know anyone who had been through it. I was completely shocked and frightened as I left the hospital.
I don’t remember the walk back to the car, but I remember sitting in the car and just bawling my eyes out. I cried harder than I can recall ever crying before. Even though Dom was there with me, I felt so alone, and needed to talk to someone else. Through my tears I trolled through my contacts list, but there was no-one I felt would understand how I was feeling so I called the one person who is always there for me, no matter what. When Mum answered the phone, I couldn’t talk. My mouth was open but no words came out.
‘Oh God, what’s happened? Are you okay?’ she asked. All I could do was sob. I tried to get the words out in one smooth sentence.
‘I have to have IVF.’ Finally, I got the message out and Mum said she was sorry and she didn’t really know what to say. Mum had no idea about IVF either. How could she console me when she didn’t even know what I was about to go through? I hung up and sat in the car and cried and cried. I don’t know why I was so upset. It wasn’t the end of the world—Dom was alive and he was going to get better. There was still hope for us to have children, but I was terrified of the unknown and I felt very, very alone.
You know that saying, ‘A problem shared is a problem halved’?
Well, that’s why women talk about their problems and dramas—we feel better releasing all that anxiety and being comforted by our friends. We also like to be able to comfort our friends in times of need.
I needed to tell all my friends and family that we had to do IVF. I couldn’t keep it to myself. It was an important part of my healing and coming to terms with the whole idea.
Dom couldn’t understand why I was so upset. How could he be so cool about it? Did he not realise the pain that was ahead? Admittedly, it takes a lot to upset Dom. I had only seen him cry twice so far in our six-year relationship.
Dom and I talked about it on the air, although not too much because it’s not exactly a happy and ente
rtaining topic for the morning—or any other time, really—and our job is to get people revved up for the day ahead.
I blogged about it on my personal website and people started reaching out to me, including people who had been through IVF—that was awesome. Finally, I had people I could share my fears and feelings with, and I could learn from their experience. I felt really lucky.
I got hundreds and hundreds of emails and messages. People even sent me presents in the mail—there were aromatherapy oils, fertility books and, even, booties! I went on fertility forums and, even though I didn’t post much, I read loads of posts and stories from women who were going through what we were about to go through. It made me feel as if it was normal and I wasn’t so scared anymore.
In the beginning, we qualified for government funding for two cycles of IVF. That was huge relief because each round of IVF costs over $10 000 and the cost, alone, can cause a lot of stress in a relationship—never mind the infertility. If it doesn’t work or people don’t qualify and have to consider funding cycles themselves, things get tough. When you’re desperate for a family, it’s really hard to say no. We were lucky and didn’t have to worry about that so we happily jumped on the publicly funded waiting list and agreed that we were both committed to having a baby.
IN HIS OWN WORDS—FACING INFERTILITY
Our priorities went back to planning our family. Retrograde ejaculate is a funny old thing. Everything does feel exactly the same but nothing comes out at climax. I was producing sperm but it was travelling back into my bladder and coming out when I wee’d. From a hygiene perspective, I can see a list of benefits to this condition, but for the purpose of family planning it’s not ideal, for sure. I’d never had my sperm checked before my medical emergency so it’s impossible to know if the tumour messed with my sperm and killed it or if it was always bad. I just knew we needed help now.
Before starting any kind of fertility treatment you have to attend a counselling session. Dom and I did this and realised that there were no underlying issues and that we were ready to crack into it. We got a fairly glowing report—aside from the fact that the counsellor could tell I suffer serious anxiety. Like I told you, I have a lot to be anxious about. Once you get started, the counsellor is always available if you need her, but I didn’t feel the need to see her again.
Because we were eligible for funded treatment we were referred back to the fertility clinic, FertilityPLUS at Greenlane Hospital. There we were told we’d need a procedure called ICSI—pronounced ‘icksy’, which stands for intracytoplasmic sperm injection. You could call it EIVF—that’s extreme in vitro fertilisation. ICSI treatment involves a single sperm being injected directly into an egg. If the egg fertilises and continues to grow in a Petri dish under the watchful eye of laboratory technicians, it gets placed back into the uterus where it will, touch wood, keep on growing.
Dom was feeling a bit gutted and guilty because our difficulty was caused by his problem—he felt his involvement in the whole icky ICSI process was a walk-on role only. He felt bad that I was going to have to jump through all sorts of horrible hoops. IVF is pretty much a series of blood tests and injections and drugs and prodding and scans. I don’t like needles in my veins so the blood tests were going to be the worst for me. I can’t even look when I’m getting them done so the whole thing was certainly going to be a challenge for me.
Before we could begin we had a whole lot of tests done to check our fertility levels and general health. We had blood tests to check for rubella, hepatitis B and C, HIV and sexually transmitted infections. All the blood tests came back fine.
I also had a hysterosalpingogram (HSG). That’s an X-ray of the uterus and fallopian tubes. I had to lie down and have dye squirted up my fallopian tubes to see if there was a blockage. My left tube was fine, but when they got to my right tube I was in agony. It was the most pain I’d ever felt—an excruciating cramp that almost caused me to faint and throw up. So, they determined my right tube was either blocked or had a spasm. Either way, I wasn’t prepared to go back and finish that test. It was horrific.
We already knew our main problem was Dom’s sperm and getting it delivered to where it needed to be for us to conceive. We were told there were two ways to get his sperm out. When he ejaculates, instead of shooting out the end of his penis like most men, Dom’s sperm travels backwards into his bladder. So he could either masturbate then urinate and his sperm could be washed, or he could have his sperm surgically removed from his testes.
Dom’s sperm count was low, real low—in the hundreds when it should be in the millions. And of those hundreds, not many looked great under a high-powered microscope. So we had not a lot of sperm and what we did have was crap quality and not that easy to access.
The doctors and nurses who had had a hand in making IVF babies reminded us that it only takes one sperm and one egg—we didn’t need millions anyway. That was reassuring and gave us hope. If there is one thing you need a lot of when doing IVF, it is hope. The fertility business is based on science but also on hope, and we were hoping to make the best of our situation.
IN HIS OWN WORDS—GOING TO THE FERTILITY CLINIC
When we first rocked up to the fertility clinic, we were told the odds were something like 30 per cent. So we figured that, in theory, even if we were unlucky the first time, we should be parents by the third round for sure.
Maybe this was making some assumptions about baby-making stuff and just what a breeze it was going to be. We quickly learned the surgeon who told us IVF was ‘straightforward and easy’ knew fuck all about it. Even if IVF is successful on the first attempt, I don’t think anybody who has been through it, even only once, would ever say that. We were in for the ride knowing it wasn’t going to be as easy as drinking a bottle of bubbles, watching a Julia Roberts rom-com, lighting some candles and letting nature take its course.
Why do we want children?
Finding out we needed medical help to have a child made us really question why we wanted kids. For me it was about the stage of life I had reached. You’re born, you go to school, you’re a teenager, you become an adult, you find love, you marry, you have children, you retire, you die. But I have never been an overly clucky person.
When I was a little girl, I refused to play with dolls and would much rather read a book instead. I decided early on I didn’t want children because of all the drama Mum had with her kids and I didn’t want that for myself. Meeting and marrying Dom had changed the way I felt about all that. I wanted to have his children. I wanted to be able to share the greatest gift with him, to have a wee person that we had created together. I had reached the ‘you have children’ part of my life.
When we found out we couldn’t have kids as easily as we’d thought we could, we both felt desperate. We began to panic, fearing we may not be able to have children at all.
We’d love a baby from scratch—one born of my egg and his sperm, that I breastfeed and we nurture together and teach about life, who would grow up and become an awesome person who makes a difference to this world. And we were about to embark on IVF to make it possible. I was excited and optimistic, but also nervous and apprehensive. It’s a wild ride.
IN HIS OWN WORDS—WHY DO WE WANT CHILDREN?
The stock-standard answer I usually give is something very vague like, ‘Dunno really. I just do.’ The truth is, I don’t know all the reasons. I think a lot of it just comes down to a natural yearning, a paternal instinct at a certain age.
But there are the selfish reasons, like this niggling fear I have of being old and outliving all my mates and having nobody in my life who cares if I live or die—not that kids are a guarantee you will have visitors at the nursing home!
And then there are the unselfish reasons, such as just wanting to experience that unconditional love that is bigger than anything else.
If we can’t have our own children, it’s going to feel like my life is incomplete. For the rest of my life it’s going to feel as if there is a big part missing and that�
�s a big thing to deal with. Although I’ve always wanted to be a father, now that it may not be possible I realise just how much it means to me.
Dom’s job
In preparation for our first round of IVF, Dom opted to have his sperm washed. He went to the clinic and was sent to the specimen room. Later, he wondered if the staff call it the ‘wank room’ when no patients are within earshot. He was given a small plastic jar with a screw-on lid to take with him, and instructions to masturbate and wait until he was ready to urinate. Then, he had to collect his midstream wee plus sperm in the jar, seal it and deliver it back to the nurse. Job done—Dom delivered 80 millilitres of urine and sperm to the checkout.
After that, the urine would be washed—they put the urine in a high-speed spinny machine that separates the sperm from the wee. There were only five sperm in the 80-millilitre specimen and they were non-motile—that means they didn’t move. It wasn’t looking good for our baby production.
To put it in perspective, generally only half of a man’s sperm is motile, and half of those are mutant—without heads or tails. In other words, only about 25 per cent of sperm is good for fertilising eggs. So, when most men would have about five million usable tadpoles, Dom will have just twenty-five.
Three months later, which is the time it takes to grow new sperm, Dom tried again as soon as he was able. Another 80 millilitres of urine mixed with sperm backwash was collected and checked. This time, the clinic told us that there were reasonable numbers of non-motile sperm and that made the sample unsuitable for ICSI. Then the kicker came in the report we were given:
‘Advise that a testicular biopsy is necessary.’
A testicular biopsy is a procedure otherwise known as a TESA—‘testicular sperm aspiration’. It’s where the doctor slices into the testicles to collect sperm direct from the vas duct. In plain English, Dom’s sperm was shit and it would need to be extracted by surgery.
Misconception Page 3