Is ignorance bliss?

Fell down with some nasty illness last night, which I knew was coming from the sore throat I had the night before.  Spent the night tossing and turning and trying to breathe through my mouth, and then my mouth would dry out and my lips would start cracking.  I must have listened to every This American Life episode from 1997 on my Iphone just to keep me entertained in my insomnia.  But I was determined to get that second blood draw done today, and they assured me illness wouldn’t affect the numbers, so I did.

And I’m proud of myself.  I’m proud that I’m putting on my big girl pants and doing things that used to scare the crap out of me; I’m proud that I’m taking charge of my health and my fertility and doing the best I can to take care of myself and my potential children.  It’s so hard.  Only my sister and those others out there who have survived cults that don’t allow medicine can possibly understand how hard this is for me.  Other than regular gynecological checkups since I was about 33 (which I only started to get on birth control) I have never been to a doctor, never had a blood test, never had any vaccines (you should have seen the doctor’s eyes widen when I told her this yesterday).  I was taught that medicine is bad, doctors are bad, hospitals are bad, our bodies are bad.  Even though I’ve been out of this mindset for years it still lingers.  So I sucked it up and went in today for a real workup – all my numbers: all the thyroid numbers, cholesterol, even an HIV test.  And I don’t mind admitting I’m scared of what they’ll find.  Years ago I was contemplating getting a test for a certain illness and my mother said to me, “you can, but you know they’re just going to start finding stuff.”  I admit these words are echoing in me today.

Not that I expect to come up HIV + or anything; I think this would be somewhat impossible.  But I am afraid of what next week’s doctor appointments will tell me.  What if I’m all out of whack?  What if I have high cholesterol?  What if I have to get on a battery of bizarre medications just to get “the numbers” where fertility doctors want them to be, only to still not be able to get pregnant?  All this time, my whole life, I have been under the impression that I am healthy, strong, and normal.  What if I’m not?

It’s so sad when I think of how I started this week thinking I would finally be able to go in and have my first “try” in just two weeks.  Talk about dashed hopes.  I guess I’m glad I haven’t wasted money and “tries” without getting a full picture first, and my tactic all along has been to not test or medicate until I know for sure something is wrong.  And I respect the clinic for following me in this; it’s one of the reasons I initially chose them, which is that they would let me lead the way as far as how “aggressive” I wanted to be.  And with all the signs there until this week I thought for sure I was ovulating and everything was fine.  But now that’s all shot to hell. 

The worst part is my mind is playing tricks on me.  I’m back to that thing of seeing bratty kids out in public and thinking, “God, do you really want to do this?”  I’m sick in bed today, and I’m thinking, “What would I do if I had a toddler right now?  How could I take care of myself and him/her when I’m sick?  I don’t even have any food in the house!”  I know what I’m doing is trying to talk myself out of it because I’m preparing for bad news.  The problem is in today’s technologically advanced world there is bad news…but there are things you can do about it, if you have the money and you’re willing to put your body through hell.  Nobody’s going to tell me (I don’t think) “you’re barren”.  What’s most likely to happen next week is they’re probably going to tell me that this number isn’t ideal, this number isn’t ideal, this number isn’t ideal, but you can take these medications for weeks or months or change these habits for weeks or months and then come back and we’ll see if anything has changed.  Ugh.  Call it the sickness talking, but right now all of that sounds totally draining.

It's not the despair, it's the hope!

I love John Cleese.  I love how all the characters he plays are snotty, uptight, and ready to snap at a moment’s notice.  In one of his little known movies, Clockwise, he is attempting to get to a conference and has one mishap after another, hilarity ensuing.  At one point he’s so sick of everything that could possibly go wrong going wrong on this road trip that he yells out, “it’s not the despair that gets you, it’s the hope!!!”  And that’s exactly how I’ve felt for the last twenty four hours.

So up until yesterday I thought I was normal, healthy, and ready to become a mom in two weeks.  Sure, I have low post-ovulation temperatures, but this was a fairly common hormonal deficiency that could easily be solved by just taking progesterone supplements, and bam! - healthy baby.  Then the clinic called with my blood test results.

Yes, I have low progesterone.  It’s a 3.3 and they want to see a 10.  But this isn’t what concerned them.  They say I have hypothyroidism.  I’m at 4.9 (just slightly above normal range, which is 4.5) but they want you under 3 in order to get pregnant.  They said they want me to get on a medication called “synthroid” right away and then they will monitor me in six weeks (!) and see if it’s made any difference (!).  I right away made an appointment with a random Kaiser doctor (my first attempt at using my new insurance) in Glendale in the hopes that they’d just hand over the prescription and be done with it.  I thought I’d like to avoid another hideous blood draw if I could, so I drove up to the clinic to pick up my lab report. 

When I got there, the lady who did my ultrasound, X, was there, as was the original (Doctor?  Nurse practitioner? Specialist? Who knows) who I had consulted with and who knew more of my history, who I’ll call Z.  I picked up the paperwork and Z assured me the level really wasn’t that high, just fairly typical for women my age.  Which was reassuring.  But then somehow we got to talking about ovulation and Z asked X (ultrasound lady) what my lining was, which was 5mm (remember, when I said to X is this a problem she said no, it would be dissipating already), and then Z blurts out, “oh, then you’re definitely not ovulating.”  WHAAA?  I said but what about all the signs?  The positive OPKs?  The fluid changes?  The temperature dip and spike every month right on schedule?  The three bars on the fertility monitor?  She said yes, but you also have the low post-ovulation temps which means you’re not ovulating.  I was absolutely crushed.  I said to X (ultrasound lady), “but I thought you said you saw I had ovulated, that the left ovary was bigger than the right, that there was a follicle…”  She said she did see a follicle, but Z said no, I didn’t ovulate.  I told her my next period is due Sunday and she said I probably won’t get a period.  What?

I went home in a torrent of tears and frustration.  I’m telling you, every time I walk into that place, they give me a totally different story.  They contradict each other; they completely change their opinion of my history based on some random piece of information that contradicts every other piece of information.  They say the only thing that indicates ovulation for sure is the temperatures, and yet they don’t accept temperatures at all when it comes to timing IUIs – say it’s the “rhythm method” and it doesn’t work, so they ask you to use OPKs, which as we know have been reading bright and clear for me for months, always followed by that temperature dip, always followed by a temperature spike.  And yet they say I’m not ovulating.

Then I got a comment from someone on one of the Choice Moms discussion boards that made me start to think.  This person was furious that my clinic closed on that Sunday when I (thought I was) ovulating; she said I need to dump them and go somewhere that’s more accommodating.  I personally thought it was ridiculous that they would let me throw a whole cycle down the toilet because they didn’t feel like staying open another half hour; that and the constant changing of information has been driving me completely batty. 

So today I saw my generic Kaiser GP, who turned out to be lovely.  Although she’s not an ob/gyn nor a fertility specialist, she was very skeptical about the information I’d gotten from this clinic and encouraged me to at least see their ob/gyn for a second opinion.  She said that yes, if you have all the signs, and yes, your periods are normal, PAPS are normal, and I’m not THAT old, that she has a hard time believing I’m just not ovulating.  She also had never heard of this business of wanting a really low TSH number to get pregnant, and as expected wanted to do more thyroid tests to get a better picture of what’s actually going on.  She says that 4.9 is a number and she doesn’t medicate numbers, she medicates people.  So she asked me to come back for a full blood workup when I haven’t eaten (of course I had breakfast an hour before) and they will run more thyroid #s plus everything else I have no clue about – iron, cholesterol, etc, and then we’ll take it from there.  I set up an appointment for Tuesday with their ob/gyn; she said to bring all my charts, all my info, and just talk to them and see what they think.

So now I am hopeful again even though I know they could all say the same thing – my blood tests could come back hypothyroid and I’ll have to go on this synthetic hormone for six weeks and then see if it even makes any difference; the ob/gyn may take one look at my charts and say, “yeah, you’re not ovulating.”  They may tell me I have a litany of problems and trying to get pregnant will be a real uphill battle that may not even be worth doing (especially when I have $0 put aside for something like this).  But they may just put me on progesterone and tell me I’m fine and I can try when I’m ready (boy would I love to still try in April and May!).  But I will attempt to look at this as an exploratory time – I’m just going to take baby steps (no pun intended), get all checked out, talk to some people, get that 2^nd opinion, and see what comes of all of it.  Honestly, I’ve swung from despair to hope so many times in the last few months that I really don’t know which is worse.

Control, Alt, Delete

I had started a blog today about all the things I used to do to fill time because I was lonely and single and how people tend to do things like this when they have nothing better to do (…because they’re lonely and single).  But you know what?  It depressed me.  It was so profoundly negative and so dismissive of my current single, childless, non-pregnant life, that I read it back to myself and said, “Hey, wait a minute!  I’ve got a great life!  I’m not waiting around to meet some guy so my life can begin, screw that!!!”  So, the heck with it.  Control-Alt-Delete.  Let’s talk about why I’m glad I get to be a single mother. 

The name.  I get to not only name my kid what I want, after my relatives, but they get to have my last name.  And I intend to give (them, her, him) the correct spelling of my last name, not the Americanized version I’ve always used that it is now too complicated to undo.  I plan on using a middle name that’s been in our family since 1400 that so far nobody has used.  I’m very excited about this prospect.

That time right after childbirth where you wish the husband would just go away and leave you and your baby alone.  Not that every new mom feels this way (I’m sure many are glad to have help, in that “can you take her?” kind of way), but most married new moms I’ve talked to have admitted husbands are pretty useless during this period.  Let’s face it, not only are you the kid’s mom, protector, and changer, you’re his or her sole food source. And you’re healing from childbirth, and (most) husbands probably can’t wait to get all up in your junk again.  Ugh.  And then there’s that fun dynamic of “well, I’d better give it up because if I don’t he’s going to get it elsewhere.” So now you’re healing, you’re body is all out of whack, you’re nursing, and you have to get all sexy with the guy so he doesn’t go out and cheat on you.  Sounds kind of awful if you ask me.

No parenting disagreements.  What and when the kid eats, where he or she sleeps and how long, when to potty train, who the kid has in his or her life, how and where to school, etc etc, is all up to me.  Now, it might be nice to have someone else doing research and coming up with opinions.  But do men do research on this stuff?  I doubt it.  They may or may not have opinions, but most likely their opinions (like ours) are based solely on, “well, that’s how my family did it.”  And no two families are ever alike, and many (including our own) may have had some pretty destructive habits.  It would be great to be able to make a decision about some parenting issue on my own and then if it’s not working, switch tactics and not have to consult someone.

No in laws.  I don’t have to worry about my kid being exposed to some weirdo in the guy’s family (I imagine a scenario like this – “I don’t want her around Uncle X, he gives me the creeps,” answer: “You’re crazy, he’s totally fine.”), nor being shit-talked about me, nor being influenced in some weird direction by people who are family but are still strangers to me.  Don’t have to feel guilty that I don’t want to spend tons of time with his parents (been watching this unfold on Bethenny Ever After with great interest).

No break ups.  We all know how damaging divorce is to kids.  And face it, married ladies, at least half of you will divorce during your kids’ childhoods.  Not to say I won’t meet someone, get married, and get divorced, too, but I certainly don’t plan on dating (kind of ever again, to be honest) so I don’t really picture this happening for me.

No dependency.  I have my own house, I have my own income.  I never have to feel like I have to beg for an allowance, cut way back when I’m on maternity leave, worry if the husband will feel emasculated because he can’t make enough on his own to support us, etc etc.  I don’t have to feel like I have to stay in a crappy marriage because I can’t afford to support myself and a child on my own (MANY women are in this situation, and it sucks).

No argument over more children.  As noted this is a big issue on the What to Expect discussion boards.  Women always want more children; men rarely do.  They freak out, they think they can’t afford it, they are (probably) jealous because they know the women are way more focused on the kids (it’s true, gentlemen, hate to break it to you).  My heart’s desire is to have two children but I know this may be a stretch at my age.  Still, I love that I can pursue or not pursue this option without having to get someone else’s ok.

The only plusses I personally see to parenting with a partner are: free childcare when you do need to go out, someone to hold your hand during the hard times, and financial help.  Plus I guess the joy of being in a traditional, nuclear family that the world and society recognizes and celebrates.  Other than that, you can keep it.

Pregnancy Fears

Most of my life I’ve suffered with anxiety disorders.  They run in the family.  For me my anxiety has manifested itself in various odd ways, the most odd being the decade-long run of “trichotillomania” I had in jr high and high school.  Here’s a little known fun fact about me: I spent most of my junior high years with no eyelashes.  Why?  Because I obsessively, compulsively plucked them out, one by one, over and over again.  My mother knew about this, but was pretty helpless to stop me; after all, in the 80s nobody knew about OCD, panic attacks, anxiety.  Things like picking your eyelashes was considered a “bad habit”.  “Why don’t you just stop?  You have to stop doing that,” was what I heard most, and boy did I want to stop.  I knew I was ruining my looks; I was terrified one time the eyelashes just would never grow back.  But grow back they did, only to face another onslaught from my sharp little fingernails.  How did I eventually stop?  The answer is…I don’t know.  By the time I was in high school this activity had tapered off considerably; by the time I graduated it was pretty much over.  It’s not that I finally conquered my fears and anxieties or that I had amazing willpower and just stopped.  It’s that it suddenly became unappealing and I no longer felt like it.  To this day I don’t know why I started or stopped; my theory is it was some weird hormonal thing that hit me at puberty and then slowly ended. 

In my adult life I suffered from horrendous panic attacks – the worst being the two year period during which I was being sued.  There was something about the depth of terror this lawsuit put in me that brought normal low-level anxiety into full on panic.  I would freak out while driving on the freeway and have to pull off the road and sit and breathe.  I would be in the middle of chewing something and suddenly become convinced I was going to choke and actually feel my throat closing up.  I was terrified to leave the house.  As I predicted, once the lawsuit was over (I won), the panic attacks completely subsided.  However, they weren’t gone forever.  They would still pop up at random moments – on air planes, on amusement park rides.  A couple of years ago I decided to try to really get a handle on this, but without medication.  I started taking yoga, I worked on “re-wiring” my brain to be more positive in general.  And I’m not going to say I will never have a panic attack again, or that I don’t still occasionally have them now.  But the difference is night and day.  Now when I feel one coming on I can nip it in the bud or just ride through it with minimal discomfort.  I’ll tell myself, “Ok, we’re going to have a panic attack, but it’s ok.  You’ll get through it, and just do your breathing.”  It’s amazing how well this simple method works (you should try it!).  And so I had been having a pretty decent couple of years where I felt very calm and peaceful.  Until I started thinking about having a baby.

Now you’ve heard me talk at length about my fears of being infertile.  So the best case scenario is that I whoopee! - actually get, and stay, pregnant.  There was a time when I would think, “if I could just achieve a pregnancy, then all my worries would be over” (I know, I can hear you all chuckling now).  Thinking about actually going through a pregnancy has brought out all kinds of weird thoughts and fears.  I’m going to lay those out for you now.

I’m afraid of losing my body. Yes, I’m afraid of looking like the picture above.  Not that I’m afraid of being a big pregnant girl (after all, it’s natural and healthy).  I have a real fear, and I think about this way too much, of never being skinny again.  And I don’t mean skinny as in crazy Hollywood size 2 or less skinny (I haven’t been that size in 15 years).  I mean just a normal body weight, not overweight.  I have a fear of never again wearing my most beloved clothes, having to buy a whole new wardrobe (although this would be fun, I certainly can’t afford it).  And yes, I’m afraid people will look at me and go, “God, what happened to her?  She used to be so cute.”  I know, I know, it’s vain and I shouldn’t care what people think, shouldn’t care about being overweight if I’m a new mom, etc etc.  And I’m quite proud of myself when I remember all the times a snatchy single friend of mine would make a comment about a new mother being a little pudgy and I would right away jump in with, “hey, give her a break, she just gave birth!”  I guess all I can hope for is someone will champion my cause like that.  But since I’ve never been the gym addict/salmon and salad type, I think the odds are pretty good I’d better get used to the idea of being a little big for a while.

I’m afraid of losing my mind.  You always hear the term “pregnancy brain” or “mom brain”.  And these are real chemical reactions that happen to nearly everyone, and like every symptom of pregnancy/early motherhood, serve a biological purpose.  So, again, normal, natural, healthy.  But I’m afraid of becoming a total fuzz brain and not being able to do my job.  Hopefully I’ve timed this all so that at the end of my pregnancy and at the beginning of the baby’s life there isn’t that much for me to do…but eventually I have to focus on my business, and I am afraid I won’t be able to.  I’m afraid I won’t care that I won’t be able to, that all I’ll give a damn about is the quality of my baby’s poo this morning. 

I’m afraid of losing myself.  I think this is the biggest fear for me.  I’m afraid I’ll morph into someone I don’t recognize, or like.  And again, that I won’t care I’ve morphed.  When I was ten, I spent my entire birthday sobbing my eyes out, scared of growing up.  I was convinced I was “losing my childhood.”  I have the handkerchief I used to sop up my girlhood tears in my purse right now.  All through my childhood and teen years I was terrified of being an adult.  Was it like Ally Sheedy said in “The Breakfast Club” – “when you grow up, your heart dies”?  I was afraid I would turn into someone I didn’t know; that I’d be cruel and heartless and crass and jaded.  Years later I related this story to my therapist and she said, “how did your mother present adulthood to you?”  I thought for a moment and said, “Pretty grim.  She was always bitching about things, always saying things like ‘just wait’ or ‘get a job’ whenever I had a complaint about something.  She made it sound like adulthood was hell.”  Bingo.  And of course as an adult I didn’t become cruel, heartless, or jaded (maybe a little crass).  I’m still me.  Will I still be me after the tremendous hormonal/brain/life change that is having your first child?  Will I, like some of my mom friends, turn into this judgmental witch, constantly picking on everyone else’s parenting and acting like they have everything figured out?  Will I (horrors) suddenly have the urge to go to church? 

I would like to sit down right now and make a pact with myself:

I will still be me.

Any changes can only make me a better me.

Change is constant.

Being a mom can only make me more compassionate, thoughtful, caring, and loving.

That doesn’t sound so bad, does it?

Genesis

I thought it might be fun to copy over my journal entry from the day it first occurred to me to try to have a baby on my own. This was a week after my aunt Bertie's death.

11/6/10  12:38 PM

Have an insane thought that I can only admit to you, as that’s what journals are for.  I fully expect this thought to pass in the next few days, and I know it’s a direct result of my grief at Bertie dying.  But this idea has presented itself and has really made me think.  The idea is…to have a baby.  By myself.

This is something I NEVER would have considered before.  In fact, I often railed against women intentionally bringing fatherless children into the world, and thought how awful for them to have to do it alone.  But it’s funny how age and experience changes you.  The simple fact is this – if I’m even capable now at my age, my childbearing years are pretty limited; realistically I only have maybe a couple of years left before it becomes impossible.  I highly doubt I’m going to meet someone, date, get married, and get pregnant in the next year and a half.  My experience with X definitely plays a factor in all this, too – just reminds me how impossible it is to make it work with men my age (they’re all losers) and how impossible it’s going to be to make it work with someone in time to have a child.  I always talk about how much it sucks to be a woman and have to wait for some man to choose you before you can have a family, and what if no man ever does…but the fact is, in today’s world, you DON’T have to wait.  You can make it happen all by yourself, just as I made my business happen and I made home buying happen.  You can actually be a mom of your own biological child without waiting around for a man to pick you to have a child with.  It’s a wild thought, but oddly comforting.  That yes, I’m only 38, not 45, and yes, it’s still a possibility if this is something I decide I want to do.

The biggest negative to me is finances.  Can I afford to raise a child?  I’m tempted to say no, but there are people far worse off than me doing it.  Getting pregnant is amazingly cheap – just $500 per insemination, and assuming you have to do it around 5 times, we’re looking at $2500.  Piece of cake.  Then of course there’s the health insurance of maternity and a child, which I’m sure is no joke, but can’t be more than I’m currently spending on travel every year (between $5000 - $10,000 a year).  But I do worry about the money – I’m no Murphy Brown, what if the (business) takes a serious dump, how could I possibly make money, get a job, with a baby in tow, all by myself?  I mean, this idea assumes that everything goes well – that I continue to make the same living I’m making now for the next ten years or so (of course I’ve already pulled it off for 13 years, including two crappy recession years), that the kid is healthy physically and mentally and doesn’t have any special needs beyond food & clothes.  What if the kid is sick, autistic, mentally challenged?  The odds are pretty good in someone my age.  What if the (business) goes down?  There’s no one who can take care of me.  And my options will be pretty severely limited with a child and no one to help.

The other negative is judgment – I’m sure there are many people I know, I can name them right now, who will NOT be supportive, and many people will change their opinions of me.  It will affect all of my relationships, it will change everything. 

So, with all this negative, why, you ask, would I even consider this?  Well, here’s the thing.  It’s just larger than me.  At the moment, my own personal freedom, enjoyment, free time, doesn’t seem to matter as much as the fact that my genes are just crying out to be able to live on.  Bertie is gone, and soon the others will go as well, and the number of people on this planet genetically linked to me are shrinking.  I simply cannot stand the idea of our whole family dying out and nobody being left here to remember us and carry on our legacy.  What does it matter?  Well, I guess in the scheme of things it doesn’t matter.  Plenty of families disappear due to wars, illnesses, natural disasters.  Nobody cares, and it doesn’t matter.  But if you saw your family disappearing, and you knew there was something you could do about it, wouldn’t you at least consider it? 

So how would it change my life?  Dramatically, I know that.  Even just the small details – putting that wall back so I can have a second bedroom again, getting up early with the kid, not being able to travel, not being able to go out as much as I once did.  My biggest obstacle, as with the dog, would be finding a solution for the times I do have to go out – the occasional gig, the occasional night out dancing.  I have no support network, no parents or family members who could step in and baby sit.  But I bet you I could find friends who could help, get involved in those mommy groups where we could trade babysitting duties, and again with the dance world so baby centric right now, most places I go I could bring the baby anyway.  In other words, where there’s a will, there’s a way.  Yes, it would be difficult, and yes, it would curb my social life, for sure.  But with most people in my social circle having babies anyway, I don’t really see a problem since they mostly do kid friendly activities now.

In other ways I’m totally set up to be a stay at home, hands on mom.  I’m home all day, I have no responsibilities, I’m only busy a couple of months out of the year, and with proper delegating and changing of duties I could even curb this.  I live in an excellent school district.  So the physical part, the being there part, I could do.  I don’t have to go to a full time job like most single moms.  I have a well established business that should for all intents and purposes continue on as it has done.  There’s nothing else I want to do – I mean, I love traveling, but a couple more trips and I’ll have been everywhere I wanted to go, and I can always pick it up again once the kid grows up.  There will be no more events, no more activities I can dream up to keep myself entertained.  Basically, this is it, this is my life.  And it’s a good life and I like it, and it wouldn’t be a tragedy if I never had kids, but all that’s happened lately has made me wonder – what if I did?

So the plan is to just think about it, research it, and not tell anyone.  It’s nothing I would do right this second, but I’ll tell you – if I decide I still want to do it, I would think about it after the next (event).  So when I’m 39 going on 40, maybe the winter/spring of 2012.  And in the end I may not even be able to get pregnant, or hold a pregnancy, so it may all be a moot point.  But with X gone and Bertie gone it’s really made me consider it for the first time.

(Editor's note: obviously I have chosen not to wait a year and have pretty much told everyone, including putting all my deepest fears/concerns/evil thoughts on the internet for the world to read.  So much for that!)

When is enough enough?

So tomorrow is my blood test to check my progesterone levels and come up with a plan of action for when I “pull the trigger” in about three weeks.  I’m glad we’re being proactive about this as it may very well save an otherwise doomed pregnancy.  Of course I hope the test shows my progesterone levels are just fine, but I already know they aren’t based on my low post-ovulation temperatures (they seem to be particularly low this month, which is worrisome).

Other than last Monday’s ultrasound, which only confirmed that I had ovulated too long ago to proceed with an IUI (but they didn’t find anything weird like cysts, missing parts, or endometriosis, so I guess I should be glad about that), this blood test will be my first definitive look into my reproductive future, for reals this time.

I hope this time I ask all the questions I have to ask and don’t just shuffle out the door backwards mumbling, “ok, yes, thank you” like a turn of the century butler.  What I want to ask is, if I do have low progesterone, how low is it, and what is the best option to fix it?  Can it be fixed?  Is this common, should I be worried?  Is low progesterone an indicator that I have poor egg quality?  Is there a fix for that?  Etc etc. 

Since the beginning of this process I have asked myself what my bottom line is – how much am I willing to put my body and bank account through before I give up?  We all wish things like this to be easy and painless, but life has taught me that nothing is ever as easy as we hope.  So, where do I stop?  How many IUIs?  What fertility meds am I willing to subject myself to (if any)?  Can I afford a round of IVF if it’s my only option? 

A creepy thing happens when you want a baby and you know you’re not young and it may not be so easy.  At first you think you’ll just be all carefree and easy about it – “oh, I’ll try a couple of times and if it doesn’t work then I’ll know it just wasn’t meant to be.”  But then you think a little more about it, that moment when you’ve tried unsuccessfully to get pregnant with no medical assistance, and your doctor (or your studies on the internet) tells you that you might want to think about trying Clomid for a cycle.  Or Femara, or any one of the fertility meds out there.  And then you ask yourself, “boy, if it’s just one round of fertility meds and then a healthy baby, isn’t it worth it?  How would you feel if you stopped trying before taking further action and spent the rest of your life wondering, if only I’d tried Clomid would I have grandkids now?  I mean, this is my BABY we’re talking about.”  And the next thing you know you’re saying to yourself, sure, I’d try some meds.  I’d do injectibles.  Maybe I can take out a loan, maybe I can max out that credit card, maybe I can not pay down that debt…and what I want to know is, where does it end?  At what point does the longing for a child become unhealthy and dangerous to your mental health (and finances)?

Right now I can’t say what my “limit” is.  I have no intention of sending myself into financial ruin over this…but it’s easy to say that now.  Just one $15,000 loan for one IVF cycle and I could have a healthy baby…just one $3000 round of injectibles and I could have a healthy baby…etc etc.  Not to continually toot the “I’m glad I get to do this myself” horn, but here is another area where it helps to be alone – I get to decide when enough is enough.  I don’t have to feel pressured to do extraordinary things to my body if I really don’t want to; I don’t have to be told “that’s it, we’re done,” when I’m not done.  Like everything else on this motherhood journey, I figure the answer to the “when is enough enough?” question will be discovered as I go.  Hopefully, I won’t have to make this choice, the choice to stop.  But if I do, I hope it’s as clear for me as was the choice to start.