Not bad for €10 an hour

Well the Gods of irony must have had a few drinks upstairs last night with their buddies from the department of irritation, and decided amongst themselves to send another bolt of 'see how much he can take' in the general direction of my fat head.

Try pushing the incidental stuff aside, you know, the repeated failure to impregnate, the confirmation that you've got the natural potency of the dodo, and many, many instances of increasingly irrational behavior etc etc etc.

If you push all that aside, what else would you really NOT recommend a couple who are trying to conceive to do?

Did I hear the skinny lady down the back with the bug eye say 'babysit' ?
We have a winner.

Yes, ET & myself have been asked to babysit for a few hours on Tuesday evening.

Queue awkward silences, knowing glances, brushing off of comments and questions like 'Oh it really suits you' and 'So when are you guys gonna get one?'.

I've booked our flights, withdrawn as much cash as I can fit in a nappy, and photoshopped a birth certificate for the kid who we will raise in Switzerland. (Named Spencer of course, I'm sure she won't mind)

So, ask ME to babysit in my tormented and demented emotional and psychological state will you?

This'll f&^%ing teach ya.....

Disclaimer - I do not condone kidnapping babies. Teenagers are far more likely come willingly to annoy their parents anyway.

Ignorance & Bliss

With all that has lead up to this, the 11 failed cycles of trying to get knocked up and the utterly marvelous revelations that my sperm are couch potatoes, I've started to wonder about what results I really want to see from this semen analysis.

Do I want another set of poor results?
Will this really prompt the Dutch medical world into springing into action and working their magic and bringing an end to the great baby drought of 2007-08?
This would obviously mean more tests, more procedures, and infinitely more waiting.

Do I want great results?

Do I want to see wonderful figures that would send women scurrying for safety with crossed legs for fear of falling pregnant by just being in the presence of such potency?
This will obviously mean that there are other gremlins in our machinery, and therefore, more tests, more procedures, and infinitely more waiting?

It would be like earning a Phd and not being able to get a job.

Do I want to know at all?
What is ACTUALLY the point of knowing the results now?
Whether I like it or not, it doesn't matter if the test shows I've got a lower motile sperm count than Heather Mills has toes, or a greater motile sperm count than she has gold dug dollars in the bank, there still will be no child.

In the end, isn't the only real positive outcome of any fertility test, the family that results?

So, come on Spencer, do your bloody job this time around and make the results irrelevant, for me eh?

Return of the sperm runner: This time it's personal

I was prepared.

I had everything timed to a tee: Alarm, packed for work, showered, shaved, and lab paperwork in order.

Just fill this pot up with what must surely be a half litre of my finest saved up 'sample' was all I had to do, before hopping into the car and off to the hospital.

"Squirt".

What?
That's it?
You have GOT to be taking the piss, it's less than the last bloody time!

There I sat on the edge of the bathtub, shaking my (upper) head in disbelief, trying to screw the lid back on the pot, and strongly contemplating the possibility that testicles have an underdeveloped sense of humour completely independent from their owner.

Where were the GALLONS I had most certainly saved up?

Disheartened, I put the container (which looked more like I had sneezed in it rather than filled it with a well timed semen sample) carefully in my pocket.

Down the stairs, out the front door, down the path, past the pond (where I swear I could see a couple of frogs lighting cigarettes), into the car, and off I drove to the hospital.

(Incidentally, while sitting in the car park I had one good hard look into the container. It was hard to tell but I couldn't identify Spencer in there. Fingers crossed he's already gone off with his whip and hat leading the charge on the temple of doom.)

I was prepared.

I knew EXACTLY where I needed to go, so no cringe inducing conversation at reception would be necessary.

Confidently clutching my pot of man milk like a hand grenade primed for launching, straight past the hideous receptionist and off down the hallway I bounded.

Upon stepping into the lift, the blood drained from my brain.
There stood a pretty wee nurse with her petite finger hovering over the button...

Pretty Nurse: Which floor?
Sperm Clutching Idiot: (rapidly losing oxygen to my brain) ...er...I dunno

Pretty Nurse: What number route then?
Sperm Clutching Idiot: (at this point in grave danger of losing consciousness) ...er...I forget

Pretty Nurse: (getting impatient) What DEPARTMENT then?
Sperm Clutching Idiot: (almost yelling) I know this one!...medical microbiology...

Pretty Nurse: Oh (smirking) I see.... 2nd floor.

A short 4 hour lift ride and 17 popped blood vessels later.
BING!

Practically ripping the arms off my jacket in the still opening doors, I walk-ran up the corridor, and through the double doors to where the medical microbiology office was.

No.
No. No. NO.
No light, no nurse, no give way with the door handle.

It wasn't bloody open yet.

So, what? I just have to stand there in the hallway turning redder and redder, in front of a sign that may just as well have read 'WANKERS WAIT HERE', grasping a thimblefull of lukewarm semen in my chubby sweaty hands for every passer-by to snigger at?

Yes.

9 of them. I counted.
Every individual face now branded onto my brain, so I can rapidly flee, or scratch their eyes out should our paths ever cross again in the future.

10 minutes later, a woman shuffles up along the corridor to the office door. With a key in the lock, and her creaking neck straining backwards to look at me, she croaks: "Semen?"

My head bowed, all faith in lucky breaks lost forever, I replied: "Yes".

Into the office we step, she continues to shuffle around the room, flicking light switches and opening windows.
On my life, may God strike me down dead on the spot if this woman was not at least 70 years of age.

All well and good, at least she's experienced I thought, as she asked me the standard set of questions.

I was prepared.

Then it came: "When was your previous ejaculation?"

Now, fellas, I can guarantee that you haven't lived through shame until you are faced with the question of the timing of your last sexual climax from a woman as old as time itself, and who bears a startling resemblance to the owner of 'Tweety Bird' in those cartoons.

Unaware that I was now in the foetal position, rocking too and fro, I answered her.
I was now also highly conscious of the fact that if she calculated the days backwards she would work out it was in fact on a Sunday, which was undoubtedly going to seal my condemnation to eternal hell in the eyes of this 420 year old spinster, even if it would in fact, at this point in time, be a welcome relief for myself.

I picked up the remainder of my self respect, balled it up, tossed it in the bin under the desk, confirmed the 2 week waiting time for the results, and left.

Out the wrong exit (,again) I go, past the inexplicable chickens (,again), and vowing never to go through that again (,again).

Honestly, I WAS prepared.