In a little less than five months, I will be 30. The big 3-0. Honestly, I'm not too upset about it. While the first few years of the decade were wonderful, my 20's have been wrought with struggle and heartache. Thankfully, I still look younger than my age, and I'm doing well heart-health wise, but the one significant thing that brings about little bouts of panic if I stop to really think about it is the fact that I'll be 30 and still not a mom. I'll be 30 with crappy ovaries. I'll be 30 with IVF looming in my future and as more time goes by, I'm not sure if that's the route we're willing (or even able) to take.
I'll be 30 and no closer to having a child than I was at 24.
As many of you know, we decided to take a baby-making break after our final failed IUI last May. It wasn't all that hard to arrive at that conclusion. In addition to being completely wiped out emotionally and struggling with an immense sense of hopelessness, we were getting ready to move across the country and were financially strapped, to say the least. We just didn't have "it" in us anymore. For the time being, the uphill battle had won. Although it hurt, taking a step back felt like the right thing to do. And now that I can look back and reflect on the past year, I can say with absolute certainty that it truly WAS the right path to take. We have taken the year to heal, to refocus and reconnect. It has been so therapeutic and so necessary. But, we are still financially in the same place we were last year. Jason is still in school and I'm the only one working. Additionally, we are not certain we are done healing, and that's okay. The one surprise: we've now discovered that we're quite ambivalent about our next step, when the time comes.
When we were told last May, for the second time by a second doctor, that we would most likely need to bury our hopes of an IUI yielding successful results and move on to IVF, we kind of accepted it the best way we knew how. We were so tired, nearly shell shocked by the whole thing, and I think we just kind of mentally conceded and thought, "Okay, that's next...but not yet. Not now." But now we wonder if it's the best thing. The idea of taking that much medication, especially with my heart health concerns being ever at the forefront of our minds, just to attempt to get pregnant, is quite frightening to both of us. I am incredibly sensitive to hormones. I have heart palpitations when I have my period. I have been told that it is likely that should I achieve pregnancy, I would battle arrhythmias the entire time, perhaps even need to be on medication to combat them. Since we lost our one and only pregnancy at 6wks, it was really too soon to tell how my heart would handle the stress of a full term experience. And of course there is the cost. We won't be able to afford even one IVF attempt for years. Meanwhile, my ovaries aren't any younger or less cyst-covered and our want for an addition to our family will not have changed. If anything, since so much time will have passed since beginning this journey, it will have reached full throttle...my biological clock ticking very loudly indeed.
The bottom line? We're just plain scared. We don't want to go through what we went through before, we don't want to get sucked up in the throes of trying, and don't want to risk losing ourselves again to the war of infertility. Therefore, we find ourselves between a rock and a hard place: on one hand, we want children and can't imagine a life without them. On the other hand, we are afraid of walking that path again.
Some people may read this and think, "Why don't you just adopt if you can't have biological children?" Because, dear friends, adoption comes with its own set of ups and downs. It is a long and arduous road, just like trying to have a biological child if you are infertile. There are disappointments, there are frustrations, and there are requirements, some of which we do not yet meet, namely a home of our own and acceptable income. And even once you have "passed inspection" there is the wait to be placed with a child, which can sometimes take years. So the adoption option is still a good ways off, just like the IVF option.
And I'm turning 30 in less than five months.
More and more, I am finding that I am not so much angry at our situation as flummoxed. "How did we get here?" has largely replaced "I am so angry we are here," which in truth is quite the improvement. I remember being 24 and having so much hope. I could clearly see the face of our child and the lives we would lead together as a family. Now, that face has faded until it's nearly gone. But happily, instead of feeling mostly despair, I feel a sense of impatience and uncertainty, which is certainly a step up from all-encompassing hopelessness, anger and resentment.
I don't think about all of this every day. Actually, on the whole, I don't really give it much thought in comparison to how much it used to dominate my brain, which is such a change from where I was last year at this time. It feels good to have a mind mainly free of infertility woes. I sleep better at night and I'm working on letting go of things and thoughts I cannot control and which serve no other purpose but to upset, infuriate and worry me.
We have to believe that one day we will be blessed with a child. Someday, our little family of two will grow by two baby feet and it will be the answer to so many prayers. Whether biological or adopted, it will be ours and it will be so very loved. Until then, we have a lot to consider and a lot of money to save. Thank you for supporting us along our journey, even in this 'tweener phase. It means so much!
