Rolling out the 'grote kannonen'

Well campers, it's time to get all "shock n'awe" on yer asses. (I really can't pull off the American thing, can I?)

It's time for rolling out the 'big guns'.

Monday, having now officially gone into (cyclical) year two of trying to conceive, we speak with a reproductive specialist at the university hospital.

It's a relief, an annoyance, a source of hope, and a source of anxiety all in one.

We arranged the appointment some weeks back, so we have aleady had some literature through about the reproductive department ('Sectie Voortplanning')

It's quite good, includes the basics, what the usual paths of action are, what checks and test are possible. All the stuff that makes an anal 'chillingly methodical' number cruncher like me (thanks Foreigner By Default ;0) ) relax a little bit.

This brings me back to another aspect of this whole bloody 'adventure' that I've often mentioned but never gone too deep into. We live in the Netherlands, and are not native speakers.

Thanks to the mundane daily tasks we have to do to earn a few quid here, I have built up a decent level of Dutch from working with the noble race, ET less so as she works with an international company, the lucky bitch.

Dutch is a funny language, with some translations simply impossible, and some translations that are so literal you would piss yourself, or 'pis jezelf' (see what I mean?)

So I've been struggling through this reproductive literature, picking up some great new vocabulary, which I'm gonna share with you ignorant folk.

Fertility is 'vruchtbarheid' or literally 'Fruit-ability' - Does this mean our best chances are in the Autumn, like crab apples?

My testicles are 'zaadballen' or literally 'Seed balls' - Thankfully my seed balls have seed in them, but what about the poor bastards with no seed in their 'seed balls', do they then not have 'testicles' in Dutch?

An ejaculation is a 'zaadlozing' or literally a 'Seed letting loose' - Now, considering the issues I'm having with Spencer and the boys I think that's a tad insensitive.
'Letting loose' conjures up visions of wild sub-saharan African beasts thundering through the undergrowth and out into a green vast plain bellowing their cries of the wild. In fact my semen seem to be behaving like two grumpy teenage boys with hair in their eyes, flopped on the sofa, watching 6 hours of 'saved by the bell' because they are too lazy to move to pick up the remote control.
Hardly accurately described by 'letting loose'.

Bless their sensitive Dutch hearts, they do try to put a quite cosy spin on some of the more gruesome aspects. For example the dreaded post coital test is often referred to as the 'samenlevingstest' or literally the 'living together test'.
Now I presume it's intended to describe the 'living together' of his man milk and her juicy internal bits after a good old squelchy session, but I just like the explaining-where-babies-come-from type innocence of it all.

All I can say is that innocence, has most definitely, left the building.

Roll on 'grote kannon' Monday when I'll be standing prepared with my Dutch-English dictionary in my hand and my heart in my mouth...

I want to say a huge thank you to everyone who has been commenting, with advice, tips, reassurance, recounting their own experience, and well wishing. It surprises me no end how nice some of you gits can actually be. Off the top of my head I just want to say a special thanks to Ashely from BossSanders and Bernard from RaisingEli who both went 'above and beyond' in offering advice & information, and well wishes, respectively.

24,000,000,000 to 1

24,000,000,000

300,000,000
350,455
310
26
25
12
5
2
1

24,000,000,000
This is the number of Spencer's buddies I calculate have been dispatched into active duty in the name of trying to conceive. That's twenty-four billion.

300,000,000
That is further number that have been sent out on research duty.

350,455
This is the number of milligrams of vitamin supplements I would have taken in order to help the cause, had I been taking all of them from day 1.

310
This is the number of days we have been actively trying, and failing, to conceive.

26
This is the length in days of cycles it now seems. 28 don't live here no more.

25
This is the number of siblings (& their children) I have. A fertile bunch eh? Another cup of irony soup anyone?

12
This is, as of today, the number of failed cycles. A bloody year.

5
The percentage of couples our age who don't manage to conceive in 12 cycles.

2
The number of times I've had to 'milk' myself in the name of science, Not once, but twice.

1
This is the number of very pissed off Irish brace-mouthed, sub-fertile bloggers who is wearing correctly matched shoes for once.
It's the total number of sperm actually needed out of that twenty four feckin' billion to be any bloody good.
It's the number of wives that I have, and have disappointed time and again over the last 310 days.
It's the number of chances I want, just the f#*$ing one.

Should I be worried...

...That I've totally gotten the date wrong for the first act of childcare we would have been involved in since we began trying distort my wife's body forever through conception?

I was only a week out. That doesn't mean anything, does it?

...."Spencer!!!, come back, you're not f*&^ing up to this!".....

I'm not reading too much into this. Honest.