A Childless Life Is a Barren One for Some

Candace Hurley of Laguna Beach never wanted to see another baby shower invitation as long as she lived--unless it was hers.

In the spring of 1985, 10 of her friends were happily pregnant. But instead of taking regular trips to the obstetrician as they were, she and her husband, Brian, were making frequent visits to an infertility specialist. What her friends took for granted was out of reach for her, and none of them seemed to understand the frustration she felt.

Hurley says: “People would say, ‘Oh, you shouldn’t worry about it. You have a wonderful marriage. You should feel lucky.’ Nobody knew how I felt, but everybody was telling me how I should feel.”

Their friends were full of well-meaning but misinformed suggestions: Take a vacation. Don’t think about it so much. You don’t really want children; they’re too much trouble. Think of all the money you’re saving. Adopt, and then you’ll get pregnant.

When the Hurleys and three similar couples wanted so much to be understood that when a documentary producer from KCET-TV in Los Angeles asked them to let camera crews into their lives for a program on infertility, they agreed.

Neither they nor producer Nancy Salter imagined those cameras would be there off and on for three years, witnessing moments of hope and heartbreak, elation and resignation. The cameras followed them not only into the examining room but the operating room, in some cases. From low sperm motility to Fallopian tube blockages, every detail was documented.

The result is “Expecting Miracles,” a KCET Journal report to be shown Monday from 9 to 10 p.m.

“Our intention was to do a documentary on infertility and the types of treatment available,” Salter says. “We wanted to see people as they were going through the process. At the time, we thought at least one of the couples we were dealing with would be pregnant within a year. That’s what happens with about half the couples who go through infertility treatment. But no one did.

“We were lucky that it worked out that way,” Salter says. “It gave a much more realistic view of what it was like for them.”

“I always wanted children,” says Hurley, 34. “That’s something that was forever in my mind. Brian had nine brothers and sisters, and it was always in his mind too. When it didn’t happen, that was very difficult for me to take.

“I was determined I was going to make it happen,” she says. “It became a really huge part of our life. It was like having a second job. I never missed a month (her monthly doctor’s appointment) in five years, except for surgery and my miscarriage. I never took a vacation that didn’t jibe with my ovulation time. I needed to explore every medical aspect before I could let it rest.

“I was working with an adoption agency when I got pregnant. The next step was in vitro (test-tube) fertilization.”

At one point, Candace Hurley says she told her husband to “find a woman who’s fertile. He tried to reassure me that he didn’t marry me for my baby-making ability.

“When we found out he had a problem, I was secretly extremely relieved. I had such guilt; I really felt I had failed him. As much as you know it’s completely insane, you still feel it.

“I never felt that he wasn’t quite a man because of it. But for me, I really equated being a mother with a huge part of being a woman, so a huge part of my womanhood was not there,” she says.

Thanks to an experimental technique in which Brian Hurley’s sperm was washed with a drug to increase motility, they are now the parents of a 1-year-old son.

And now, thanks to Mother Nature, they are expecting a second son sometime next month. “There was a one-in-a-million chance that we would have been able to get pregnant on our own,” Candace Hurley says. “For us, this was just another miracle.”

After Teri Phillips of El Toro, now 33, had a miscarriage in 1983, she and her husband, Maurice Sanchez, 32, assumed that they were fertile.

When Sanchez found that he had a sperm motility problem, he was shocked. “It did make me feel like less of a man at first, but then later I tried to divorce myself from that feeling and really go with the feeling that it was a medical problem that might be fixed. Once we narrowed it down, it didn’t intrude on my manhood as a whole.”

After three years of trying to conceive, Sanchez and Phillips adopted a daughter in 1986. But they continued medical treatment, including their monthly visits to an infertility specialist for artificial insemination with Sanchez’s sperm. Now they have a 6-month-old biological child as well.

“Had we not been able to eventually have a baby,” Sanchez says. “I would have felt, gee, I can’t create children. A big part of my life is gone.”

Before they became parents, Sanchez says, he and his wife “really didn’t feel like a family, not anything like the sense we are now. It was natural for us to be together, but there was something that was missing, a big hole in our lives for quite a long time. Babies are really a gift, and a lot of people take them for granted. I don’t think we’ll do that with our two.”

Maxine and Chris Macha of Fountain Valley are parents now too, with adopted sons Corey, 3, and Brian, who was born June 12. The birth and adoption of Corey is featured in “Expecting Miracles.”

“Everything is absolutely normal,” Maxine Macha says. “But we haven’t been able to get pregnant. The sad part of unexplained infertility is that you want something to be wrong, so badly. You just want them to say, ‘Oh, I found a problem.’ I remember when the doctor told us, ‘Everything looks good, and that’s not a good sign.’

After six years of trying every medical technique they could find, the Machas--she’s 33, he’s 36--consider their family complete and are no longer trying for a biological child. “It doesn’t make any difference anymore,” she says. “We went through so much for so long. Once we had Corey, the intensity wore off.”

All three county couples have been active in Resolve of Orange County, (714) 859-0580, a group for couples with infertility problems.

How Do You Spend Your Summer Vacation?

The classic image of the family vacation is the loaded-down station wagon, kids in the back seat, Dad and Mom in front, on its way to a peaceful spot in the country. But these days vacations don’t always mean togetherness, with some couples deciding that getting away from it all means taking a break from each other, or the kids. If you’ve tried separate or adults-only vacations, tell us how it worked and whether you’d do it again. If you haven’t, tell us why not.

Children Having Children

Your teen-aged daughter is only a baby herself, and now she tells you she’s pregnant. Even as more adult women are postponing pregnancy these days, there is still an epidemic of teen-age pregnancy. If you and your family have faced this problem, tell us how you dealt with it. Abortion? Adoption? Are you raising your grandchild along with your child? And tell us what you’d do differently if you knew then what you know now.

Dad and Apple Pie

Are you a single dad who is raising his children alone? We would like to meet you and talk about how you cope with juggling business and social life, and other problems you face.

Send your comments to Family Life, Orange County Life, The Times, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa 92626. Please include your phone number so that a reporter may call you. To protect your privacy, Family Life does not publish correspondents’ last names.