Hello. I’m trying to get through the night and thought maybe writing would help. As the title of this topic says, I am on a rough road. I would say that up until last October my life was very smooth. I am 34 years old, an only child of two wonderful parents, married to my best friend and soul mate, with a small group of lovely friends. I still have all these people in my life. The change is that last October we found out that my husband has something called azoospermia, which means he has no sperm. This was devastating news. We had been trying to conceive for a year and, like most people who receive this diagnosis, we were shocked. I went into warrior mode and we started seeing doctors within a month. Contemplating the possibility of not being able to have biological children was very painful. Fast forward to this year. My brother-in-law generously, selflessly, offered to be our sperm donor. We were still hoping to find sperm if my husband got testicular surgery, but needed a back-up sperm donor. Then the other shoe drops… his brother also has azoospermia. They both test negative for all genetic reasons they know to test. Meanwhile, my body is checked and it turns out I have a blocked tube and a possible septum (division) in my uterus. I doubted I had a septum but agreed to do the surgery with a specialist. Turns out, he was right and corrected the septum. So that was actually a good moment, perhaps a smooth part of the road.

I am a huge animal person. Also, if I psychoanalyze myself, my pets are like the children I haven’t been able to have. Well, last year, while my husband and I were going to doctors and paying for everything out of pocket, we were also taking our beloved cat to her own veterinary appointments. I would like to pause and add that the reason I am still walking this road, however bumpy it may be, is because of money. My husband and I saved money to buy a house and thanks to this money we were able to treat our cat for cancer and ourselves for infertility. Many people would not shell out ten grand on their cat, not because they don’t want to but because they can’t. We were fortunate to have a down payment to use for all these medical appointments. Plus, my in-laws have offered to pay for the IVF (in-vitro fertilization) that we’ll be starting soon (more on that in a minute). So, we are very, very fortunate, because many people would have been forced to not have children.

Back to the road… so our cat died. I got very, very depressed. More than ever before. This was in February. In March we had some good news: my husband started producing sperm after being on a hormone drug for many months. Not a lot but enough for IVF… like a couple hundred! He stayed on the drug for another couple of months and the time ticked by very slowly for me and every day I struggled with anxiety. Even though we had such good news I felt a residue of depression. Finally, we decided that what might help would be to adopt another cat or two. In the past two years since we started trying to conceive, our life has felt very stagnant. I’ve stayed at my job in order to keep my insurance, although I would like to find a job where I could grow more. We still live in a studio apartment; once all the doctor’s appointments started the whole buying a house thing was off the table. The only change was that our cat died.

About six weeks ago, we adopted two cats from a rescue. I debated bringing another cat into our lives. I was fearful that they would get sick because that’s what happened to our other cat, and I knew I was very fragile, that for me a cat is never just a cat. But I met these two skinny cats and opened my heart. They have been an absolute delight and the day after adopting them I was lifted out of my rut. I cleaned the apartment, bought a new bedframe (we had gotten rid of the old one because our ill cat couldn’t reach it), got rid of clutter, laughed, and enjoyed all the cats’ silly antics and sweetness.

Today I was petting my cat’s belly and felt a bunch of odd lumps. Being a worrier, I immediately called my husband to feel them. I swear they weren’t there yesterday. We went to a vet ER clinic since our vet is closed today. They did x-rays and said they think it’s feline mammary cancer. She is only 2-4 years old, has gained 3 pounds, is playful, eats a lot, drinks water, has no outward signs of illness. Tomorrow, at 9am, we have to go to a specialist for a pre-surgery consultation. I don’t even have words to describe how I feel. Well, I feel cursed. I feel like somehow I caused this. At the same time, I feel helpless to stop bad things from happening.

Yesterday I had a healing acupuncture session and the tightness in my chest and stomach went away. I went because my first IVF meeting is this Wednesday, then the first injections on June 2nd, the egg retrieval around June 12. After six months of waiting and testing we are finally moving forward. Yet all the healing from yesterday was for nothing. I want to believe that tomorrow we’ll find out the bumps are benign. I don’t just want to believe it. I want it to be true. I want to wake up. I cannot imagine how I can proceed with IVF while undergoing another loss. I know things can always be worse. The trouble is I’ve taken that saying to heart so utterly that I now worry they will be worse. It’s almost like I feel bad that I’m finding my road so rough when I know other people travel even rougher roads, and I am all too aware of other peoples’ tragedies. My friend’s daughter died, for example. That is the roughest road there is. And now, to be honest, I worry that if I have a child they’ll die too. I brought these two lovely cats into my home and now one may have cancer. I’m struggling to tie this all together. I guess I just feel cursed, like my anxious, negative, worry-wort mind has brought these tragedies upon us. It’s hard to keep walking along the road when you don’t know if it will ever get easier.

Thank you for reading any of this.