Loss of Hope

It's not a good night. Ughhh! I hate infertility! (Imagine a string of expletives to go along with that.) Today, Facebook informed me that a doctor from my clinic did an interview. I always listen to these despite the fact that they are never informative to me, basically an Infertility 101, if you will. So in this clip, some blogger woman named Mara explains how infertility is a blessing… and I turned it off. I'm so not in a place to listen to that right now. Today, infertility is the farthest thing from a blessing that I can imagine. Infertility has destroyed so many of my dreams. Infertility has made moderately difficult decisions into life-altering, "we can't mess up" kinds of decisions. It's taken small, insignificant details and turned them into giant issues. I HATE INFERTILITY!

I hate that I'm even writing about it… again. I'm sure my real life friends are so over this. I tell myself, "self, you need to write three blogs without mentioning pregnancy, or infertility, or babies because the people are sick of your story… move on already". But you guys, infertility has literally affected every single aspect of my life. I'm not sure I remember who I was before this all started. Everything relates back to trying to have a baby. Grocery shopping. Simple, right? I mean it's not rocket science. But all of a sudden everything that hits the cart gets scrutinized for two things: 1- should I be eating/drinking that? and 2- if I didn't buy X, we'd be $2.43 closer to IVF. Ughhhh! I just want a Snickers sometimes, you know? Jeez!

Tonight, I hate that I've literally lost hope. Infertility has stolen my ability to hope for the future. My friend Em was struggling with this the other day as well (see? I'm not the only one). Sign me up for a prescription of hope any day! I'm about to enter into an IUI cycle. I have zero hope in it. This time last year, I thought IUI's were going to solve my problems, be a dream come true, be a one way ticket to babyland. Well they weren't. Does that mean they won't be/can't be? No, but I can't manage to eek out even a little hope in this process. I resolved myself several months ago that IVF was our last hope in making a child… not in being parents, but in making a child. Once upon a time, in my naivety, I believed that IVF is a sure thing. I guess I knew that it could fail, but only once, right? Joining the community of fellow infertiles has shown me a different story. IVF is great. It's the Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) option with the greatest chances of success, but it's still not a guarantee, not by a long shot. So I've resolved myself to the cold hard fact that we might go all the way to IVF and still not come home with a baby. We can talk about frozen embryo transfers (FET's) all we want, but there is absolutely no guarantee that we will have any embryos to transfer. It is all crazy uncertain until you actually go through the process. So knowing the long odds of IVF bringing us a baby in one shot, I just can't get back on board with an IUI.

I'm a hot mess tonight. It's not pretty. My husband and I are trying to pick between several less than desirable insurance plans. I say less than desirable because they all cost more than my previous employer's plan, and because, well, I still live in Georgia, the land of "no infertility coverage". My husband views everything through the "what if we get pregnant lens?". He's looking at maternity plans. I can't go there. I'm not sure if this is a revelation I'm experiencing tonight, or if I am simply one hot, hormonal mess (I did pray for my period). But geez, I shouldn't cry over maternity plans. It's ridiculous. Infertility coverage (hahaha, no there's no such thing, that's the Land of Oz), make that coverage for minuscule things like blood work and consultations during non-treatment cycles, has made the decision making process absolutely insane. No one, anywhere, not at my human resources department, not my doctor's office, and not my insurance company to-be can answer a single solitary question regarding will "X" (oh say, an AMH test) be covered under policy A, B, or C. We're shooting blindly here.

I also learned that there is mathematically no way that we will be able to pay for IVF by my birthday. Did I mention I'm a mess tonight? I've learned from lots of infertiles, particularly those going through Donor Egg procedures that donor companies and RE's advise couples to look for young, healthy donors. What's young? Apparently, it's 27. My current age. The age I'll cease to be in October. I know, I just said that I could go all the way through IVF and have zero healthy embryo's to freeze. But what if? What if I have 20 freezable embryos? What if IVF actually works? What if we complete our family and have 2, 5, 10 embryos left over? I can't terminate them. And I can't leave them frozen in time forever. But what if I try to donate them and no one wants them? Ughhhh!

It will seriously be a budgeting miracle if we succeed in paying for IVF by the end of this year. There are literally no more corners to cut, no more sacrifices to make… if we somehow manage to stick to this crazy budget, IVF will be when it will be, and that's as soon as I can hope for, and that's really no hope at all.

May things look brighter tomorrow, Lord.