At Long Last!

I'm just now getting around to posting the "after" picture from the disaster that had been our living room. And no, I wasn't standing on a ladder or hovering over the room. This picture was taken from about halfway up our stairs. Already Molly has picked off and destroyed an ornament from the tree. Therefore, we are back to living with the baby gate between the family room and living room.

The other "at long last" thing I wanted to write about was the seeming about faced decision to abandon further IVF treatment. When the doctor first told us that my eggs aren't necessarily rotten and that another IVF attempt might be a good idea we were really encouraged. I mean, it sounds really good. It feels good to know that we don't have to totally give up on the idea of having a baby as close to the regular was as an infertile can get. And we were even encouraged by the news of our increased insurance benefits kicking in at the beginning of the year. It really did seem like a second chance. And then I started thinking about the actual process of doing IVF again. And it all seemed really do-able. After all, it really wasn't as bad as I thought it was. Then, I remembered the aftermath of it not working. That was bad. Really bad. And I surely don't want to go to that place again. On the other hand, I realize that in this particular life circumstance of infertility it is necessary to take risks. It happens everyday and simply needs to be done. But when I started thinking about the risks that would need to be taken my mind started to shift. I mean, I would be risking our finances, my health and emotions, and our relationships. All for a 25% chance of success. And still, because of my age, I would be looking at a 50% chance of miscarriage. And that was enough to tip the scales. I simply don't feel like I can face another miscarriage.

When I started to put all of these ideas together I also had to look at the big picture. I mean, why do we want a baby? Because we want to be parents. That's it. I don't want a baby because I want to be pregnant. It's the other way around. I want to be pregnant only because I want a baby. Not because I want to be pregnant. That being said, millions of people can attest to the fact that there are other ways to parenthood other than being pregnant. After 2 years of fertility drugs I am tired of feeling lousy. I want to feel good again. And if I can have a baby while not actually having to go through pregnancy or any more fertility drugs or procedures, then why not?

We started talking about adoption long ago. As soon as we realized that we might have an issue here. We had talked of wanting to have two kids. When it became apparent that it would be a major miracle to even have one we started talking about adoption. We went to an orientation meeting. We met with friends of mine who had adopted so that Brian could hear their experience first hand. And you can imagine how many episodes of "Adoption Stories" that I watched on TV. In fact, I made Brian tivo it for me for a long time. But we wanted to wait to see what would happen with my treatments. After all, we didn't want to adopt, then get pregnant with multiples following fertility treatments! Ha! Isn't that a laugh that we actually thought like that?

And somehow it just made sense for us to take control of our lives when it feels like we haven't had any for a really long time. So here we go. Wish us well.