To Try, or Not to Try

Confession time: I haven't really been trying to get pregnant. Gasp! I know! What kind of infertile am I? The IUI kind of spoiled me. I'm sure it sounds strange to most people, but on some level, an IUI is a break from the monotony that is timed intercourse. It takes some of the stress out of the picture. It doesn't matter whether he feels like it, or if I'm into it, it just happens. There's no need for candles, or mood music. It's as close to a guarantee as you can get. I mean not a guarantee of success, but a guarantee that sperm an egg will have a fighting change.

I guess the failure of the IUI, the failure of my body to do what it was supposed to (again) even with four (maybe five) beautiful, plump follicles and an extremely lush lining has made me question what the heck I think I'm doing every month with all this timed intercourse and charting and ovulation testing. But if I'm being really honest, this started before the IUI. During my April cycle I was given strict orders NOT to get pregnant because of the laparoscopy. And it was lovely. I still kept my BBT chart that month, but I didn't test with OPK's and we didn't time intercourse... it was refreshing.

May's cycle started and we spent much of June preparing and hoping for a successful IUI. And while I won't say that IUI's are stress free (see here for evidence of my stress level), IUI's do remove the stress and the obligation to get it all right. The monitoring gave me confidence that we wouldn't miss ovulation and the actual IUI procedure allowed us to kind of chill in the baby dancing arena... again, refreshing.

So after two months of just not fooling with timed intercourse and all the stress, the next month kind of just happened. I didn't test for ovulation, I didn't worry with timing intercourse. And while you can imagine my shock when I wasn't pregnant, I kind of just didn't care enough to put in the effort throughout the month. I'm terrible, I know. I whine all day about wanting a baby soooo badly, but when it comes to putting in the time, I'm not interested. Pathetic. This month has happened almost identically. I'm charting (sort of), but I haven't tested for ovulation and I haven't worried about timed intercourse... I'm pretty confident in the outcome of this cycle already. In fact, I think I've taken like 5 prenatal vitamins in the last two months. I have religiously taken prenatal vitamins for two years, and now, I just can't seem to work up the energy. How much energy does it require to take a vitamin, you ask? Umm, effectively none. The bottles sit on my nightstand. There is also always a beverage of some kind on my nightstand. It is all of an arm's length away. And yet, every night I think, "what's the point?", and my arm just can't seem to bridge the great expanse of space between bed and table.

I'm not really sure what this says about my psyche at the moment. Is this a faith thing? A "if He wants me to be pregnant, He'll make it happen" thing? Or is this an "if IUI doesn't work, nothing I do will work either" kind of thing? Because that's the other option. We've been at this for two years now. And for the vast majority of that, we've been trying hard, really, really hard, to get pregnant. We've done six medicated cycles, four of those were IUI's, and yet all have been an absolute bust. So you can see why the thought is there... if two years of timed intercourse and fours cycles of IUI didn't work, our only hope is IVF. And if that's true, then shouldn't we just live? Just enjoy? We are already living under such heavy restrictions in other areas of our lives as we prepare for IVF, so shouldn't we give ourselves a break here, where our efforts seem fruitless?

What do you think? If it was you, would you take a break from the charting, testing, and baby dancing? Would you put your baby dreams on hold until IVF? Or would you go the exact opposite direction? Would you get fired up to give it everything you've got before handing over that GIANT chunk of change? To try or not to try, that is the question.