Defining Our Limits

Image courtesy of Katri Niemi on Flickr

I've been spending a lot of time lately thinking about the "end". The end of treatments. The end of waiting and hoping each cycle that a miracle will happen. It's been 4 long years and I'm tired of my life revolving around fertility treatments. All of our extra money every month goes towards our IVF fund. It's been physically, emotionally, and financially draining. So much so that I had to define our limits for my own sanity, and for Daniel's too.

We've been talking a lot over the past few weeks about what those limits are. We have 2 good quality 6-day blasts that are frozen and waiting. We have to find out if either of them is viable. So we've decided to do a FET and transfer both of them. It would be incredible if that worked. But knowing what happened last time, and how the endometriosis is basically poisoning my eggs, I'm just not very hopeful that it will.

So that will be our last shot for a biological child. It will be the end of fertility treatments.

That doesn't mean it will be the end of our journey. We've been discussing adoption a lot, and Daniel and I are both on the same page about it. We are comfortable with the idea, and have started doing some research about the different kinds of adoptions, timelines, and costs. We've waited so long already, and it will be very difficult to continue waiting. But with adoption, the odds of being matched with a baby are very good, and most couples are matched within 2 years. Daniel and I would feel so blessed to open our hearts and our home to a child that needs a family.

We won't be starting the adoption process until after our FET, and that will probably happen sometime next year. But in the meantime, having our limits established feels really good. The idea of continuing IVF was very stressful for me, and I really feel that it's the right decision to stop after our FET. I know many women who are able to continue IVF many times and who do end up pregnant eventually. I just don't think I'm one of those women. Emotionally or financially, it's just not something that I can handle.

And you know what, I'm okay with that. We are all different, and our journeys are different. What's right for me may be wrong for someone else. The important thing is to acknowledge where your limits are, and to feel confident when setting those limits.

Have you established limits? Please feel free to share them in the comments below!

This post is linked up at Amateur Nester.

A Big Decision

I know some of you are anxiously awaiting my husband's recent Semen Analysis (SA) results, but unfortunately I don't have them yet! I've called the clinic 4 times and finally they told Daniel that he has to make an appointment with the Urologist before he can get the results. I don't know if that's a good or a bad sign. But hopefully he can get an appointment soon because I'm very anxious to get his updated stats.

On another note, while we've been in limbo waiting for Daniel's results, I can't help but feel that we'll get more bad news. Or at least, not the news we were hoping for. We were hoping for this surgery to be the "miracle" event that turned everything around and would allow us to conceive naturally. After over 3 years of disappointments and bad news, I'm preparing myself to hear that there's no significant change.

Last week I went to another Fertility Specialist (not my usual RE, he left the practice so I met with someone new). I was there to refill a prescription but the appointment turned into something else. He wanted to know what our plan was if the new SA results were not what we are hoping for. He said that we could continue to do IUI's, but with a very low morphology the chance of conception would be about 7% per cycle. If we continued trying naturally, the chances would be about 3%.... What?! When we did the IUI last year I was told we had about a 25% chance, thus why we did it. I'm not sure if these statistics are accurate but it was concerning to hear a doctor tell me that.

To get to the point, I asked the doctor what our chances would be with IVF. He said 50-60%. He told me that he would absolutely recommend we go this route if Daniel's results haven't significantly improved. He said we would have a very good chance given our situation and my age. We then discussed the process, cost, financing, how many eggs they would expect to get from me, what we would do if it didn't work, etc. And I started to feel more comfortable with the notion, but I knew this is something I would need to talk to Daniel about.

So that night over dinner, Daniel and I discussed IVF. I told him the cost would be about $15,000, but with a 50-60% chance, we have very good odds. Is it worth the cost? Absolutely! We desperately want a family of our own, and it would be SO worth it.

After much deliberation, we made a decision. We are going to start saving as much as we can for IVF. If I'm still not pregnant by Thanksgiving (6 months from now), then we will start the process for IVF at the end of the year, or early 2015 depending on timing of things. We hope to save up at least half of the amount we need, and then we will have to finance the rest.

This plan gives us plenty of time in case we do miraculously conceive on our own, in which case the money we are saving can go towards the pregnancy and birth. But if I'm still not pregnant, I don't want to continue waiting for a miracle. Sometimes you have to make difficult decisions and take action to make that miracle happen.

I'm actually really excited about this plan! I feel that we have a very good chance with IVF, and that this decision brings us one step closer to our soul baby. If you want to learn more about IVF, click here.

Thoughts? Advice? Suggestions for raising money? Feel free to comment!