Men Are the Silent Sufferers of IVF

I don't quite understand what happened to my sperm donor after IVF failed and he lost his major client within a few days.  He completely shut down.  He is normally constantly bossing people around on the phone, and he just didn't care anymore.  We didn't talk about much.  I was ranting about Vegas, and he wasn't talking about anything.  He was watching Pawn Stars or some other garbage for days on end, but he wasn't here.

Today he showed up with a new car.  He traded in his small SUV for a two-seater convertible that cost more than both of our previous cars combined.  I like convertibles, I like this convertible, it's a gorgeous car, and we can afford it, but this is so out of character and he didn't even talk about it with me.  He said it will be at least a year until the baby, and he wanted to get a completely impractical car now.  "Last call," he called it.

Sperm donor also got really, really drunk on many, many occasions, staying out late with the guys, even going missing a couple nights.  I was too wrapped up in crying/the flu/feeling sorry for myself.  He told a bunch of his friends about the failed IVF.  Bros.  The kind of guys I definitely do not want discussing my IVF.  God.  One of them helpfully suggested we could just pay someone to bake the frozen eggs.  Gee, thanks.

This all brought me back this awesome post on Manju's excellent IVF blog that covers so much I wish I'd known before I started.  (She's been at this since 2008, with a billion rounds of IVF and sadly lost a set of twins.  She is just so brave!)

Men suffer in silence with IVF.  I have a few women I cried on the phone to or collapsed into a hug with.  People texting me to see if I'm ok.  I can whine on my blog, I can whine on the phone.  But not him.  I was too deep into myself to be there for him either.  Who's there for him?  I don't know how deep his hurt goes.  I don't know how it feels to see another damn baby announcement.  He doesn't say things like this out loud.  But he bought a new car.