My Story

grieflossinfertilityanxiety

My Story

Tomorrow is the last day of an important month. It is Men’s Mental Health Awareness Month. This month is about raising awareness about some astounding statistics. For example, the National Institute of Mental Health cites that only 40% of men with a mental health condition in 2021 received support from mental health services in comparison with 51.7% of women. The CDC reported that the suicide rate was four times higher than that of women in 2021. They report that almost 80% of people that committed suicide were men.

One of the major concerns about men's health is a stigma surrounding how men should react to mental health issues. Many men believe that asking for help is a sign of weakness. That they should hide their emotions instead of show them. They were told as children to "man up" and they carry that with them where ever they go because "real men don't cry".

Men's Mental Health Awareness Month gets very little attention. I didn't even know about it until a few days ago. I don't think of myself an activist. But now I feel like I have an excuse to share a story that I've needed to share for a while now.

Trigger warning: This is a story about infertility, child loss, grief, and anxiety.

Several years ago my wife and I started trying to grow our family. After a few years it was clear to us that Lauren would not be able to become pregnant on her own. We started down the difficult path to have her undergo several medical procedures at an infertility clinic.

Lauren went through four IUIs (Intra Uterine Insemintation; also known as artificial insemination). This is when sperm is injected via a needle into the uterus during ovulation. This caused a tremendous amount of psychological and emotional pain for her and she often had to ask me to leave the room so that I wouldn't hear her screaming. During this time we had some friends and family tell us the reasons that we were infertile and what to do to fix the problem. We even wondered ourselves if some of these reasons were true and blamed ourselves for our inability to grow our family.

One day while I was at work one of my managers came up to me and asked me for a report. For a few brief moments my mind went entirely blank. I didn't know who I was. I didn't know why my manager was standing at my desk. I couldn't find any words. I didn't know at the time but this was my first panic attack. I had many panic attacks afterwards. One time I hyperventilated until I popped a muscle in my neck. This was after I had seen a picture of a young girl smiling while she was holding up a fish she had caught and I realized that I might never have a little girl of my own. I went to the ER many times after feeling tightness in my chest, heart palpitations, or feeling all of the nerves in my body tighten up until I felt like I was on fire and afraid that my head would explode. I could not bear to see the pain my wife was in anymore.

After the failed IUIs we decided to try IVF (In-Vitro Vertilization). This process involved injecting my donated sperm into Lauren's eggs in a petri dish. They were then frozen as embryos until they were ready to be transferred to Lauren's body. To our delight the first transfer was successful. We were happy to announce to the world that we would be having a baby boy. We were excited and optimistic. Our dreams were finally going to be realized. We had some bumps along the way. After a flight to visit family Lauren started hemorraghing blood and we made a terrifying visit to the urgent care where we got to hear his heartbeat for the first time. On another occasion she had a mental breakdown because she realized she had messed up her schedule that included 4 daily injections of hormones. All through this I continued to have frequent panic attacks that were only relieved by curling up under a weighted blanket and listening to soft sounds through my headphones.

At around 33 weeks of gestation Lauren was admitted to the emergency room. This is extremely early. The nurses assured us that his chances of survival were very good but the doctor did advise that she wait as long as possible before delivery to give him more time to develop in the womb. For six days and six nights I watched nurses come in to give Lauren injections, I listened to alarms going off in other rooms, and I listened to my wife moan in pain while I could do nothing for her.

On Sunday Dec 1st, 2019 we told the doctor that he was going to deliver our baby. The delivery was planned to be a C-section. After the delivery I remember looking over to see the doctors and nurses performing CPR on our newly born son. The doctors were still trying to patch up my wife so I had to calm her down. I had to tell her that everything was fine and block her view when she asked why our son was not crying. One of the doctors had to inform me that continued efforts to revive our son would likely be unsuccessful. I asked him to try for a few more minutes but after continued unsuccessful attempts I ultimately had to give the doctor permission...

to stop.

We later learned that his umbilical cord was brittle and had snapped during delivery causing him to lose large amounts of blood.

Our little baby Owen Grant had a heartbeat. He was given a birth certificate. We had him cremated. Lauren's father (a finish carpenter) made an urn for him after the same design that he was going to use to build him a crib.

This is the first time I have written down my full story and shared it with anyone outside of my immediate family. It is more than three years later and I have learned a lot about coping with anxiety. I still have panic attacks. I have a 2-year old son named Nolan that laughs hysterically when we started to chase after him. There is no joy in the world like the joy he has brought us. We recently moved to Idaho and arranged to have our remaining embryos shipped to Idaho.

Last month we received a call in which we were informed that the cryogenic container carrying the embryos lost its seal and our nine remaining embryos were no longer viable. I was speechless and couldn't say a word. I had to take a day off from work. We are both still struggling through that loss. And yet I am still as determined as ever to keep my faith. I am determined to take actions in my life to take care of my mental health and to be a good man.

I've met many other men with stories similar to mine that have not shared their stories. Please...be good to the men (and women) in your life. This article in no way meant to ignore my wife's pain and the struggle she went through. What she went through is far worse than anything I've mentioned here. But it was time enough to tell my story. Because I've felt that I was supposed to be strong. To get back to work and to move on. I've felt that I shouldn't tell this story because it might cause grief for other people. You probably know men like this Encourage them to take care of their mental health. Show them that you care. I had people come out of the woodworks to take care of me and my wife. The CEO of the company I worked at at that time visited us to bring us food and condolences. Thank you all for the kindness you have shown me.

I commit today to sharing more often the kinds of thoughts, words, and actions in my life that have helped me through all of this.

Thank you for listening to my story.

Have a comment? Shoot me an email at jeremy@jeremyrader.com