Throwing in the Towel

Do you ever feeling like throwing in the towel, waiving your white flag? That's what I feel like tonight. My back's against the wall. The only way forward seems to be to admit defeat. Admit that, at this stage in our lives, we can't get pregnant, naturally or with the help of modern medicine.

I HATE the thought of living child-free. It makes my stomach roll, makes my skin crawl, makes my heart break. But maybe that's just the way this cookie is going to crumble. I keep waiting for a break. Waiting for a direction. Waiting for something to confirm we are on the right path. And yet, no breaks, no direction, and no confirmation can be found. So maybe it's time to throw in the towel and admit defeat.

Infertility is beating us. Bad. We've spent all the money we had and then some. We have no insurance coverage. We have no income. We have waaaayyyy too much student loan debt to qualify for another loan, and even if we could, my husband wouldn't take it. We have no monetary donors. We have no means to pay for one more thing for infertility and it makes me sick.

I asked my doctor at yesterday's appointment about going back on Femara. It seems low risk-moderate reward for me. My ovaries aren't overstimulated like on clomid so there's little risk of cysts. It gives me a nice squishy lining and an early ovulation date. However, he doesn't recommend it. Why? Because we've been there and done that. His explanation was that we've already done two femara cycles that were textbook perfect with IUI and neither resulted in a pregnancy. Repeating Femara again if there was an improvement in sperm survivability might be worth it, but otherwise, we're just spinning our wheels. Let me get my towel ready.

I'm so tired. I feel like I've been pushing against a concrete wall for a solid 18 months (ever since the miscarriage). I've put my back into, feet sliding in the sand, and yet I haven't moved an inch. I am bruised, beaten, and broken. Infertility has chewed me up and spit me out. So is it time to wave my white flag?

Of course my immediate response is that I can't give up. If I did, I would regret it later. And I would; there's no doubt. But I can also see myself regretting how much I've given up, regretting the sacrifices to our quality of life I've made five years down the road if we're still stuck here. So maybe the best thing today is to say,"until tomorrow." Maybe in a different season of life things will look better. Maybe our bodies will be functioning more normally, maybe we will live in a state with insurance coverage for infertility, or maybe our finances will be more settled.

Maybe in the next season, we can retrieve out towel, put the white flag away and go to war against infertility. But right now, it seems futile. And I don't know if I can, nor do I want to stay in the trenches forever.