Zero Doubt
The Journey to Our Family
My name is Andy and I’m infertile. It is actually the thing I’m most proud of, and by the end of this article, you’ll understand why.
I am the leader of RNE’s Fertility & Family Building Peer Group for Men. Whether you’re dealing with a male infertility diagnosis or you’re facing another barrier to becoming a parent, anyone who identifies as male is welcome to come together with a community of others who understand their struggles. In this group, I often discuss my background and journey through infertility. I say “my” journey but as we all know, it’s an experience that impacts you and your loved ones, particularly your partner if you have one. Everything I say from a “man’s perspective” is translatable to anyone dealing with fertility and family building struggles. The challenges we experience on this path may be different, but the pain is the same. In the end, we get through it.
Maybe not everyone will want to stand on a mountaintop and declare their infertility, but I do it with a purpose. Infertility happens to more people than you think and there’s no shame in what you’re going through. I want people to understand the possibilities of joy along this new path, so they don’t suffer alone in the darkness. You may already be in that darkness now, and I hope my words bring you a little light.
I can look at my life and know that I wouldn’t be who I am now without my infertility, and I wouldn’t change my life for anything in the world. It’s crazy to look back and think…all of that suffering led to the best thing that ever happened to me.
In 2009, my wife Kelly and I decided we wanted to create a family.
Because she has Lupus, Kelly’s doctor required her to be screened for any abnormalities and suggested that I should get checked out as well. Never having experienced any major medical issues and with no family history of reproductive problems, I wasn’t concerned.
After more than one “sample” (we all know what this entails) it was determined that I had azoospermia, the complete absence of sperm. We had a plan in place; I’d have surgery to correct the additional varicose veins in my testes that might be preventing sperm formation, and everything would be fine.
After that surgery (one in which I woke up while they worked on my sensitive parts) and three months of waiting to find out if it worked……….IT DIDN’T. No problem, we had a plan in place. I was to have a surgery to extract tissue directly from my testes to collect any immature sperm present….there were NONE. We did NOT plan for this.
My vision of how my family was going to be created, a dream 20 years in the making, was gone. I was shattered, but Kelly was not.
From the age of 12, diagnosed with endometriosis, Kelly had a premonition that she was going to adopt kids. So she took this news as if she had picked the right man to marry. I didn’t care what she said, my idea of what life was going to be like included kids that were part me and more importantly part Kelly. All her brains, beauty and essence that I wanted to proliferate in the world was never going to happen.
I had FAILED. I failed as a husband, a man, a son and as a father.
Part of this struggle was because my world had been built on the importance of blood and genetics. My brother and I had our joint bachelor party in Ireland with our uncles and cousins, 20+ guys all related by blood, embracing our heritage…our birthright and this is what I thought family was. Kelly could not convince me otherwise.
After the last surgery, I was able to keep it together for three months with positive thinking and pure stubbornness; then the wheels fell off. I couldn’t do something, me, something was out of my control.
For a control freak, it was the worst thing to happen and even more so because it was my own body failing me. My darkest period ensued in the following months. After gaining 30+ lbs., picking up smoking, isolating myself in the basement and accepting NO help, I had hit rock bottom.
I had given Kelly permission to divorce me to be with someone who could give her biological children.
I believed my existence was redundant since I couldn’t have biological children and “as a MAN” I had no position playing in the marriage game anymore.
I didn’t know about Resolve New England or how to reach out. It wasn’t until Kelly said to me “I’m not disappointed that we can’t have biological kids, I’m disappointed with how you’re dealing with it” that I finally reached out for help.
The one person in the world I didn’t want to disappoint, I had, because I couldn’t see the forest through the trees.
Almost robotically, I played the part of a healthy husband, going to therapy and following Kelly’s lead as she started researching adoption. We looked at international adoption due to our love of traveling, but it wasn’t until we spoke with a friend about adopting through the Department of Children and Families (DCF) that we - well, Kelly really because I wasn’t mentally present - decided that foster care was where we would find our children.
I wouldn’t have married my wife if I didn't trust her implicitly, so we took the next steps. We enrolled in the 10 weeks of training classes through DCF. Each session covered the difficulties our children might have faced in their brief existence on this planet, and it was agony. Each additional pain Kelly felt knowing children experience such horrors, was something I took on myself. At every turn, I’d think “we wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for me”.
Regardless of what Kelly said, I couldn’t help but think it was all my fault and continuously fear all the unknowns of the direction we were going.
I diligently went to therapy because I wanted to be “100% healthy” before a child came into our home.
Now of course I know that regardless of the amount of work, I was never going to get to 100% because I didn’t know what I didn’t know. I was living in the gap of what I had planned versus what was reality, and I couldn’t see that I would ultimately get what I wanted, which was a family with my wife.
While pretending to be okay, I fell deeper into despair and lost sight of the real goal. In my defense, life kept throwing us challenges.
A couple of months after our home study, we were matched with a sibling set. We were ecstatic and immediately bought furniture to set up a bedroom for the kids. The day before we were to meet them, the foster family decided to adopt the kids.
Logically, it is what is best for them, and we were happy for the children, but I was once again devastated. Another heartbreak that I caused our family. The door to that room remained closed for a longtime because I couldn’t look at the space without crushing guilt.
Fortunately, our DCF social worker was amazing and shortly after matched us with a 4.5 month old girl that was being fostered by an experienced foster family who had transitioned dozens of babies. We finally did it! We had a beautiful family! So why was I still struggling?
About two months in, I vividly remember rocking our daughter in a glider, looking at her perfect sleeping face, and bawling my eyes out.
I couldn’t reconcile holding this gift and still grieving the loss of a biological child. Don’t let anyone tell you differently, it is a loss and one that must be felt and processed.
If you’re like me, I thought about what Kelly and my kids would look like and that they’d hopefully have her brains and beauty. The world, in my mind, was going to be less because Kelly’s genetics weren’t going to continue on. I was still in pain and the guilt I felt was killing me.
Through therapy, specifically EMDR, I was able to recognize it was okay to have both feelings at once. If you think about it, we rarely only feel one emotion at a time. It didn’t make me bad, it made me human. Once I gave myself the approval to feel all of my emotions, I released them. Unburdened, my love grew, and the grief dwindled.
For me, the grief disappeared completely, and eventually we added two more beautiful girls to our family. But before I go into more detail on all the ways my infertility has benefited our family, I feel the need to restate:
there is a lot of loss on this journey that needs to be processed and toxic positivity is not helpful. You need to process both the things you’ve lost and embrace the good things to come.
If you focus too much on one and not the other, you risk walking through the world as half a person.
The stuff I worried about years ago, now makes me laugh.
I worried my kids would get angry and say we weren’t their real parents. I thought it would gut me. When my pre-teen finally said those hurtful words, I was surprised at how little it hurt. I realized it didn’t bother me because I knew I was her father. Kelly could barely hold back a laugh as she said, “it doesn’t get more real than this, you are ours and we are yours.”
Zero doubt. There is zero doubt that however you chose to make your family, you and your kids will be a family.
Kelly likes to say “if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans” and it’s true. It’s evident that she was meant to be the mother to our three girls. I didn’t deprive her of anything, this was her path and she knew it. The life we have today is one that was beyond what we could have imagined.
Our girls are different races, and our family experiences have led us to create the non-profit, Raising Multicultural Kids, to help school systems diversify staff and curriculum. Not something Kelly thought she would be doing, but this completely different career is her passion.
"We have built a strong sense of brotherhood in our group and it is so helpful to meet others that can relate to the issues we are each dealing with."
-RNE Fertility & Family Building
for Men Group Attendee
Every session, I tell the RNE Men’s Group, "YOUR KIDS WILL FIND YOU."
Whether it’s through IVF, donor egg/sperm, adoption or any other way, I feel that the kids that are supposed to be with you will be with you. Our daughters were supposed to be with us and with each other. I spent so much time thinking about what I lost because I had no idea what I was going to gain.
You may not get the delivery room experience or the baby shower, but you get to have an adoption party and celebrate your “Family Day” every year.
I didn’t know that I would be leading a men’s group and building new friendships and community.
In our group, we discuss everything about our latest experiences. Sometimes new guys are hesitant to share because they don’t know if it’s appropriate to discuss certain things. After some begin sharing the gory details of surgery or the thickness of a partner’s uterine wall, they realize that nothing is off the table. If you have an insidious thought running around your mind, get it out here. Know that you’re not alone and other people have gone through similar situations.
I have met some of the most incredible men through this group and am continuously inspired by their love and dedication to their partners. It is another opportunity that would not have been possible with my infertility.
There is a badge you earn if you’ve struggled with infertility to become a parent.
Not a real badge, but a distinction between families that experience this process and those that have not. Traditional parents haven’t had to put in the days/weeks/years of effort just to be a parent. At first it seems as if they are lucky. But you’re judging based on today, by the unpleasantness you feel in the moment. That is such a narrow way to judge something. You don’t know the future, so you don’t have all the information to properly judge.
If you embrace this path, both the grief and opportunities, I promise the knowledge you gain about yourself will make you a better human being.
Overcoming this challenge will prepare you for any difficulties down the road. You will discover new opportunities and community and maybe even find it’s time to let go of some relationships.
Along the way you will learn to love yourself and embrace your “flaws”. And as a parent you’ll find out that there is nothing more important to model for your children than these lessons.
Andy Lamb is a 42 year old, long-time resident of Easton, MA with his wife Kelly and their 3 girls that were adopted through foster care.
Their family founded a non-profit called Raising Multicultural Kids that Kelly runs. Andy works as a Senior Global Strategic Business Manager for MaxCyte, a Cell and Gene Therapy Engineering Platform company.
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